Mark Souder

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, I wish to thank the chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter); the chairman of the Committee on International Relations, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde); and the ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), for moving this piece of legislation. Just a few moments ago, we discussed a resolution in support of Republic Day in India, the world's largest democracy, and a country with a rich, long tradition and of great importance to the United States. This resolution addresses a relatively new and small democracy, the Republic of Macedonia, but also of importance to the United States. Our friend, the Republic of Macedonia, has just lost its leader. Two weeks ago, the man many believed would lead Macedonia was tragically killed in a plane crash. Now, the future of Macedonia is uncertain. The next president of Macedonia may or may not stay on the course charted by Mr. Trajkovski. The next president of Macedonia may or may not work to bring all Macedonians together. The next president may or may not have the esteem Mr. Trajkovski commanded. I certainly hope the next president of Macedonia is able to do all of these things. As is typical in many new democracies behind the old Iron Curtain, President Trajkovski did not have a long record of public service. In 1997, Mr. Trajkovski became Chief of Office in a local government administration. In 1988, he was appointed to the post of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 1999, he was inaugurated president of the Republic of Macedonia. What Mr. Trajkovski's public service lacked in longevity, however, it more than made up for in terms of quality and the impact that his policies and principles will have far into Macedonia's future. During Macedonia's ethnic troubles, he realized that peace was better than war. He reached out to the Albanians and Macedonians alike. As a Methodist minister in an Orthodox Christian country, establishing trust, even among his own people, was no small feat. Yet Mr. Trajkovski brokered a peaceful solution that avoided the further balkanization of the region. It is a little sea of hope in the midst of much conflict. In looking forward to the future of his country, President Trajkovski realized that economic development was the key to the success of Macedonia. He encouraged investment, free markets, and great international participation. Indeed, he died on his way to an international investors conference. President Trajkovski's contribution to his country's stability and prosperity will not soon be forgotten. Macedonia worked with the United States in the conflict in Serbia, letting us base multiple operations there, including camps for those who had fled Kosovo, with no small risk to the stability in their country. They are a great friend of the United States, as we have heard, in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was my privilege to meet President Trajkovski a number of times, and he was a dynamic man. But while he was a great leader as president, he was much more. He was also a good man and a Godly man. He lived his faith, and it undoubtedly influenced every single decision he made in his life and in his leadership. As a devoted family man with a wife and two children, he worked hard to make sure his children had a better future. I have gotten word that the government of Macedonia is working to support the Trajkovski family's future needs. Given the contribution Mr. Trajkovski made to his country, I am glad his family is not forgotten. In 1996, Mr. Trajkovski visited the United States in order to study the democratic political process. Judging from his presidency, I would say he learned a great deal. During his time in the United States, he visited my district. The several thousand strong Macedonian community of northeast Indiana maintains close ties with friends and relatives of Macedonia. They are very informed about the political and economic situation there. With the death of Mr. Trajkovski, I am sure they are very concerned what the future holds for the homeland. In recent days, many people have remembered Boris Trajkovski. One remembrance in particular stands out. In a moving article I am submitting for the Record, Jason Miko, an American living in Macedonia, recalls not only President Trajkovski, a powerful leader, but also Boris Trajkovski, a simple man of the people. I would like to read one paragraph in closing. He writes: ``Since thoughts are even now turning to the next president, it is vital to remember the legacy that Boris leaves. More than almost any other figure in the Balkans in modern history, he did the most to bring people together. He was respected by all ethnic groups and had a vision for this country which was 20 years ahead. He often talked about rights, together with individual responsibility, the importance of a civil society together with the need for social communication. But his most important message was one of reconciliation, love, and forgiveness.'' Madam Speaker, I submit for the Record the complete article from which I just read: [From the Macedonian Vreme, Mar. 2, 2004] My Friend Boris (By Jason Miko) My friend Boris Trajkovski passed away last week. I rarely called him ``Boris.'' I usually called him ``Mr. President.'' Sometimes, when we prayed, I referred to him as ``my brother, Boris.'' He wasn't hung up on titles and ceremony and frankly didn't care what people called him though I know he was a little bit hurt when some people in Macedonia referred to him as ``citizen Trajkovski'' during his first year in office. I think they probably regret that now. They should. I first met Boris Trajkovski in early 1997. I had moved to Macedonia in the summer of 1996 and got to know him through an American friend of mine who had introduced me to a Macedonian friend of his who knew Boris very well. I honestly cannot remember the very first time we met, but I will never forget the last. He wasn't my president, but over the past seven years, I came to know Boris as a very dear friend. And while I had the high honor and privilege of seeing him go from international secretary in his party to deputy foreign minister to president, the friendship never changed. We shared a friendship that transcended disagreements, difficult periods, and misunderstandings. Boris was always there for me and he told me about two weeks ago how he loved me. And I know his love was not limited to his family or friends. He loved his fellow citizens and his country as much as his family and friends. He was a big man with a big heart. When September 11th occurred, his was the third call I received. The first was from a friend telling me of the disaster and the second was from my parents in Arizona. Another time I remember when he asked me to give strong consideration to hiring a friend of his (long before he was president), in my organization. I didn't hire his friend, but that didn't change our friendship. It is ironic in a way. Since the tragedy last week, Macedonians of all political stripes and colors, all ethnic groups, all social classes and all religious groupings have been in a funk, a state of shock, at the loss. Boris is much more popular now in death, than he ever was in life. The international community, too, is still reeling from the loss, now coming to the full realization of what a treasure we all had and took for granted. That seems to be the way life works though. We've heard many people over the past week talk about Boris and say he was their friend. I believe most of them are sincere though I also know that there is, even now, some political posturing going on. I know that Boris held no grudges against anyone and even though he could get angry at people for what they said and did to him, he didn't remain angry for very long. He was that sort of a man--forgiving, understanding and loving. It's a shame we are only now realizing that. Boris was a rare individual. He stood for what he believed in and he fought for the values he held dear. He was real, not phony like some politicians can be. In fact, in many ways, he wasn't even a politician. I clearly remember, in the summer of 1999, as the Kosovo crisis was ending and thoughts were turning to the presidential elections of the fall, the enthusiasm that people had for him as a candidate. And truthfully, he hadn't even thought of running for president himself until ordinary Macedonians started encouraging him to run. Coming from humble roots in rural Macedonia, he was truly a man of the people and for the people. Over the past four plus years of his mandate, Boris was able to mingle with the highest and mightiest on this earth and with the most humble. And while he was comfortable in both situations--with kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers on the one hand--he enjoyed himself most with villagers and working men and women of his native Macedonia. How many other elected officials do you know who have gone into villages throughout this country speaking with the common man and woman listening to their hopes, fears and dreams? I hope that you, as Macedonian citizens, will demand that of your next president. It is the legacy that Boris would want. And since thoughts are even now turning to the next President, it is vital to remember the legacy that Boris leaves. More than almost any other figure in the Balkans in modern history, he did the most to bring people together. He was respected by all ethnic groups and had a vision for this country which was 20 years ahead. He often talked about rights, together with individual responsibility, the importance of a civil society together with the need for social communication. But is most important message was one of reconciliation, love and forgiveness. These values he held came from his deep faith and convictions. And while he was indeed a Methodist, it is not important to focus on his chosen religious denomination, but on the tenants of that faith. His deep love for the Son of God--Jesus Christ--and his recognition that man is sinful and needs salvation--prompted him to talk about and live a life of love for all mankind. I remember him--on many occasions-- talking about how he was willing to ``sacrifice myself'' for Macedonia. And ultimately, Boris did pay the ultimate price for his fellow man and his country--he gave us his life. He gave Macedonia his life that Macedonia might come together and yet live again. I hope that by giving up his life for his fellow man that something good will come of this. Something good must come of this. It can start here in Macedonia but it can spread throughout the Balkans and the world. And it is this: a life lived for his fellow man, and a deep love for his family, his country and for God. The international community, in the meantime, can help continue Boris' legacy by finally recognizing the name--the Republic of Macedonia. Boris would want this. I was with Boris last Wednesday, until about 5:30 p.m., about 14 hours before he left us for a better place. We were discussing the future, his plans, upcoming trips and the like. How short life is and how foolish the plans of man indeed! In a blinding instant it all changed, for Macedonia, for the Balkans, for the world, forever. It changed for his family, his friends, his fellow countrymen and for the international community. For people such as myself, and my friend Boris, however, we have a hope of things yet to come. Our faith tells us that one day we will be reunited together along with many others. In the meantime, what life we have left here on earth should be dedicated to spreading his legacy, a legacy of love, forgiveness, reconciliation and friendship. That is what my friend Boris would want.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I come before you in opposition to the extension of the 9/11 Commission. From the outset, I've been opposed to the creation of this blue ribbon panel. A year and a half ago I voted against the Roemer Amendment which created this panel because I felt the panels work would be duplicative to an already established blue ribbon panel, the Select Committee on Intelligence. Aside from its duplicative nature I was also concerned over the political intent behind the creation of the blue ribbon commission. I feel that if the panel generates any type of report that focuses on the Bush Administration ignoring key pieces of intelligence it can only be construed as being political. Given the fact that there were tens of thousands of intelligence memos regarding terrorist threats, if this panel criticizes a particular Administration for failing to react to one briefing memo then their report can only be seen as seen as politically driven. The panel's recent request for an extension to its pre-established May 27th deadline only reinforces my pre-held belief that the panel is going to be used as a political vehicle and not serve its original intent which was to provide recommendations for guarding against future attacks. In my opinion, the panel should have either produced a report within the original time constraints or extend the deadline till after the November elections so that the findings don't get bogged down in election year politics. The way in which the House passed the extension yesterday on voice vote with no advance notice is also troubling to me. Had the House conducted a recorded vote on the extension, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, today we honor the men and women of the Drug Enforcement Administration on the occasion of its 30th anniversary. I would like to thank the House leadership and the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), for bringing this resolution to the floor; and I would particularly like to thank all those who have cosponsored my resolution, especially the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources of the Committee on Government Reform, and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Deal), the vice chairman of that subcommittee. I am pleased we were able to introduce this legislation on a bipartisan basis, emphasizing our shared goal of preventing drug abuse. If I may just briefly comment on a few of the remarks of my friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul), our libertarian conscience in the House. He is an eloquent spokesman for limited Federal Government and votes against most resolutions here, and he works as our conscience. However, he is deeply wrong on this issue. We have, in fact, made progress on drug abuse this past year, 10 percent reduction. We have had a dramatic reduction. But it is hard to battle addiction across America, just as it is in child abuse, spousal abuse, and other things that the gentleman from Texas would oppose the Federal Government being involved in. We have a philosophical difference, but the gentleman should not disparage the efforts of the DEA and the hard work so many people do in trying to prevent the 20,000 deaths per year that occur because of drug abuse in America. Mr. Speaker, in the aftermath of September 11, we have often recognized and honored the men and women responsible for preventing and responding to terrorist attacks on our country, and rightly so; but we should never forget the terrible toll that drug abuse continues to take on America, nor those who bravely seek to stop it. According to the Center for Disease Control, every year 20,000 American lives are lost as a direct consequence of illegal drug use, and much more devastation beyond those 20,000 in indirect loss of life. The Office of National Drug Control Policy estimates that the annual economic cost of drug abuse to the U.S. in lost productivity, health care costs, and wasted lives is now well over $150 billion. Every year, drug traffickers seek further profit from this misery by importing, manufacturing, and selling these poisons on our streets and in our communities. It is a traffic in death as devastating as anything the more visible terrorists have done. The task of stopping this falls on our law enforcement agencies, and no agency is more dedicated to that struggle than the DEA. Thirty years ago, on July 6, 1973, President Nixon signed the executive order creating the DEA from several previously separate agencies, more efficient government, including the Justice Department's Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement, the Office of National Narcotics Intelligence, the White House's Narcotics Advanced Research Team, and the Drug Investigations branch of the U.S. Customs Service. On October 4, 1973, the Senate confirmed the first administrator of the DEA, John R. Bartels, Jr., inaugurating a new era in the Nation's fight against drug abuse. The DEA has carried on that fight on every front: at the borders, in our cities and small towns and rural areas across the country. As the Federal Government's only single-mission agency dedicated to narcotics control, the DEA has taken the lead in breaking the international cartels that bring cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, methamphetamine precursors and marijuana into the U.S. In partnership with other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies, the DEA has organized task forces that investigate, penetrate, and bust the street gangs and other distribution networks selling drugs on the streets. The numbers speak volumes about the DEA's success. But these numbers, impressive as they are, cannot fully convey what the DEA has done for our Nation. We are also here to remember the personal sacrifices of thousands of men and women who have served America as DEA agents and members of DEA task forces. I would like to highlight just a few of these agents. Special Agent Benitez was shot. He was a Customs officer, and then he worked as one of the first Special Agents in DEA. In 1973, he was fatally shot during an undercover investigation of cocaine dealers. He was only 28 and is survived by his wife and daughter. Special Agent Ward of Baltimore, Maryland, was assigned to DEA in Baltimore. He was the husband and father of two, and was a 13-year police department veteran who had earned numerous medals and commendations. On December 3, 1984, at the age of 36, he was shot and killed while working on an undercover assignment. Special Agent Enrique Camarena was a Marine, a husband, and the father of three children. He received two Sustained Superior Performance Awards, a Special Achievement Award, and the Administrator's Award of Honor, the highest award granted by the DEA. On February 7, 1985, he was kidnapped, tortured, and eventually killed by Mexican drug traffickers while working in Mexico. These people died trying to defend us and our children on the streets of the United States from the scourge of drugs. This is Police Investigator Wallie Howard of the Syracuse, New York, Police Department. He was a 9-year veteran who worked for DEA's central office in New York and was shot during an undercover operation in Brooklyn when they attempted to rob him. He was only 31. This is Special Agent Meredith Thompson, who joined DEA in 1985 and was a tireless worker. At the age of 33, she was one of five special agents killed in 1994 in a special reconnaissance mission in Peru. These people died. And these are just five who have died trying to protect us, our children, and our families from the wreck of cocaine, of heroin, and of marijuana that does incredible damage. And were they not on the streets and were they not sacrificing their lives, so many more than the 20,000 would have died. Mr. Speaker, today we honor the men and women of the Drug Enforcement Administration on the occasion of its 30th anniversary. I'd like to thank the House leadership and Chairman Sensenbrenner of the Judiciary Committee for assisting us in bringing this resolution to the floor; and I'd particularly like to thank all those who co-sponsored the resolution, especially Mr. Cummings, the ranking member of the Drug Policy Subcommittee that I chair, and Mr. Deal, the vice-chairman. I am very pleased that we were able to introduce this resolution on a bipartisan basis, emphasizing our shared goal of preventing drug abuse. Mr. Speaker, in the aftermath of September 11, we have often recognized and honored the men and women responsible for preventing and responding to terrorist attacks on our country, and rightly so. But we should never forget the terrible toll that drug abuse continues to take on America, nor those who bravely seek to stop it. According to the Centers for Disease Control, every year about 20,000 American lives are lost as a direct consequence of illegal drug use. The Office of National Drug Control Policy estimates that the annual economic cost of drug abuse to the U.S.--in lost productivity, health care costs, and wasted lives--is now well over the $150 billion mark. Every year, drug traffickers seek further profit from this misery by importing, manufacturing, and selling these poisons on our streets and in our communities. It is a traffic in death as devastating as anything the more visible terrorists have done. The task of stopping this falls on our law enforcement agencies, and no agency has been more dedicated to that struggle than the DEA. Thirty years ago, on July 6, 1973, President Nixon signed the executive order creating the DEA from several previously separated agencies, including the Justice Department's Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement, the Office of National Narcotics Intelligence, the White House's Narcotics Advance Research Team, and the Drug Investigations branch of the U.S. Customs Service. On October 4, 1973, the Senate confirmed the first Administrator of the DEA, John R. Bartels, Jr., inaugurating a new era in our nation's fight against drug abuse. The DEA has carried on that fight on every front--at the borders, in our cities, and in small towns and rural areas across the country. As the federal government's only single-mission agency dedicated to narcotics control, the DEA has taken the lead in breaking the international cartels that bring cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, methamphetamine precursors and marijuana into the U.S. In partnership with other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, the DEA has organized task forces that investigate, penetrate and bust the street gangs and other distribution networks selling drugs on the streets. Through entities like the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), DEA also gathers, analyzes and shares drug trafficking intelligence with its law enforcement partners. The numbers speak volumes about DEA's success: between 1986 and 2002 alone, DEA agents seized over 10,000 kilograms of heroin, 900,000 kilograms of cocaine, 4,600,000 kilograms of marijuana, 113,000,000 dosage units of hallucinogens, and 1,500,000,000 dosage units of methamphetamine, and made over 443,000 arrests of drug traffickers. But these numbers, impressive as they are, cannot fully convey what the DEA has done for our nation. We are also here to remember the personal sacrifices of the thousands of men and women who have served America as DEA agents and members of DEA-led task forces. I'd like to talk about just a few of those men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in the fight against illegal drug abuse. Emir Benitez was one of the first Special Agents to serve at the DEA. As a Customs officer, he was so successful at finding marijuana that he received three awards for superior performance. On August 9, 1973, he was fatally shot during an undercover investigation of cocaine dealers in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He was only 28 when he died, survived by his wife and his daughter. Detective Marcellus Ward of the Baltimore, Maryland, Police Department, was assigned to the Drug Enforcement Administration's Baltimore District Office Task Force. A husband and father of two, Detective Ward was a thirteen-year police department veteran, who earned numerous medals and commendations for his work. On December 3, 1984, at the age of 36, he was shot and killed while working on an undercover assignment. Special Agent Enrigue S. Camarena joined DEA in June 1974. During his 11 years with DEA, this former Marine, husband and father of three children received two Sustained Superior Performance Awards, a Special Achievement Award and posthumously, the Administrator's Award of Honor, the highest award granted by DEA. On February 7, 1985, Camarena was kidnapped, tortured and eventually killed by Mexican drug traffickers while he was assigned to the DEA's Guadalajara, Mexico office. He was 37 years old. Police Investigator Wallie Howard Jr., of the Syracuse, New York Police Department, was a nine-year veteran and the recipient of three bureau commendations for his work on several undercover drug investigations. A husband and father of two, Office Howard was killed on October 30, 1990, while serving on the DEA's Central New York Drug Enforcement Task Force. Officer Howard was shot during an undercover operation when drug traffickers from Brooklyn, New York, attempted to rob him. He was 31 years old. Special Agent Meredith Thompson joined DEA in 1985. She was characterized as a tireless worker--innovative, motivated and organized. Throughout her career, she received numerous letters of appreciation and commendation from both within and outside DEA. At the age of 33, she was one of five Special Agents killed on August 27, 1994, in a plane crash during a reconnaissance mission near Santa Lucia, Peru. This mission was being flown as part of Operation Snowcap, DEA's cocaine suppression program in Latin America. Mr. Speaker, these are only five of the names that are listed on the DEA's memorial to its fallen agents and task force officers. They are a permanent reminder of the cost in human life imposed on us by the Drug traffickers and their collaborators. Today, as we thank the DEA and its employees for over 30 years of courage, service, and sacrifice, I hope that we will draw strength from their example and rededicate ourselves to their cause--the fight against drug abuse.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address one of our Nation's most difficult narcotics problems: Afghanistan. Afghanistan has historically produced significant quantities of opium which is refined into heroin. Afghanistan's opium crops accounted for over 70 percent of the world's supply in the year 2000. According to the DEA, about 50 percent of the heroin in the American market originated in the Afghanistan-Pakistani border area in 1984. We must learn from history and diligently work to prevent any Afghan heroin from entering the American market. While Europe is the primary destination for Afghan heroin today, we suspect that 7 to 10 percent of the illegal crop ultimately reaches the streets of our congressional districts. Opium production in Afghanistan has resumed over the past 2 years. With the fall of the Taliban, Afghan growers resumed cultivation despite the renewal of the ban on poppy growth by the Karzai government. This problem could grow far worse. Only 8 percent of Afghanistan's cultivated land is presently used to grow opium poppies. If we do not prevail over this problem, the remaining cultivated land could easily accommodate more of this illegal crop. These drugs are of great concern to all of us because they increase the worldwide supply and have the potential to fund terrorists and other destabilizing groups, and they subvert all of our efforts to assist Afghanistan. The new Afghanistan cannot survive on an illegal economy. Drug proceeds are the source of a growing reservoir of illegal money that funds international crime across the region; that sustains the destabilizing activities of warlords; and that fosters local coercion and terrorism. Just like the challenges faced south of our own borders for decades, I am convinced that drug money and terrorist organizations in Afghanistan and throughout that region are locked together like a daisy chain. Our resolve to restore Afghanistan must include a broad, comprehensive plan to eradicate poppy production, not only to help the people of Afghanistan, but to cut off the funding of the terror organizations that threaten our own security. I recently returned from a trip to Libya, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. We met with President Karzai and he reaffirmed my conviction that he means business. He is serious about tackling the heroin threat to his country. Together, we must prevent the institutionalization of the heroin cartels. We must support democracy's early days in post-Taliban Afghanistan. We must help them confront those that still threaten to destabilize their society through both the narcotics trade and terrorism. If we are to win the war in Afghanistan, we must recognize that narcotics play a large part in funding the radical anti-democratic elements. We are pressing for increased coordination with the British on counternarcotics; with the Germans on policing and police training; and with the Italians on justice sector reform. In addition to the traditional smuggling routes through Iran and Turkey, reports indicate a continued movement of heroin shipments north from Afghanistan through the central Asian states, Pakistan and India en route to international markets. Our strongest partners in these efforts must be those consumer nations where the drugs are destined. The financial, resource, and intelligence requirements to defeat the scourge are not our sole responsibility. The administration must seek commitments from Europe and elsewhere to share this burden, where they get 90 percent of the heroin. Let me give my colleagues an example of a successful international operation. Operation Containment is an ongoing effort by the DEA. They recently arrested 15 members of a heroin trafficking organization and seized 7.4 tons of morphine base in Turkey. Morphine base can be converted to heroin at a ratio of one to one with a chemical. This is the largest seizure of morphine base ever made. To put the magnitude of this seizure in perspective, the amount seized was more than four times the total worldwide morphine base seizures made in 2000. There are legitimate uses of the chemical acetic anhydride in industry. Countries that produce this chemical must do their part by restricting or controlling its sale and transportation to legitimate consumers. The Department of Defense has seen the magnitude of the transshipment problem with three separate seizures by the U.S. Navy operating in the Gulf region. The first seizure was made on December 15 when a motorized dhow was apprehended in the Arabian Gulf. Two tons of narcotics were seized, and three of the 15-man crew were identified as having possible ties to al Qaeda. On December 18, two more dhows were intercepted. Those seizures yielded drugs worth more than $10 million. I am passionate about this subject. I have chaired a hearing on Afghanistan just last week. Many of the members of my subcommittee have visited the region. The administration must extract commitments from the Europeans to pull their own weight. As leaders of the coalition of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Department of Defense must be compelled to address the growth, storage, processing, and transshipment of drugs in the region. The bullets and bombs used against our own troops are purchased with illicit funds. The Department of State and the DEA must be resourced adequately to address and to assist Afghanistan in reestablishing a viable criminal justice system so that their own poppy ban can be effectively enforced.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart to mourn the untimely death of President Boris Trajkovski of the Republic of Macedonia. As many of my colleagues have heard, President Trajkovski was killed this morning in a plane crash while traveling to Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Mr. Trajkovski was born in Strumica, Macedonia on June 25, 1956. He graduated with a degree in law from the University of St. Cyril and Methodius in 1980. He was an ordained Methodist minister and President of the Church Council of the United Methodist Church. In 1998, he was appointed to the post of Deputy-Minster of Foreign Affairs. During his time as Deputy-Minister, he predicted the rise of ethnic tensions in Macedonia due to the crisis in Kosovo. He was right to criticize NATO's lack of help in that crisis. During much of the fighting in the Balkans, Macedonia allowed NATO to use Macedonian territory. During Macedonia's ethnic crisis, NATO was sorely lacking in assistance In 1999 he was inaugurated as President of the Republic of Macedonia. During his term as president, he faced near-civil war in his country. Ethnic divisions threatened to tear his country apart. President Trajkovski, however, worked with all ethnic groups to forge a solution. Despite criticism that he was too lenient on minority groups, he pressed for peace and facilitated a peace deal. In addition to forging peace in his country, Mr. Trajkovski worked to improve Macedonia's standing on the world stage. Under his leadership, Macedonia was one of the first countries to publicly support Operation Iraqi Freedom and to commit troops to the effort. Mr. Trajkovski was a tireless advocate for religious tolerance, religious freedom, and conflict resolution. Mr. Trajkovski's work also focused on improving the lives of all Macedonians. A strong believer in free markets and the importance of international economic co-operation, Mr. Trajkovski died while on his way to an international investors meeting that would undoubtedly have helped the development and future prosperity of Macedonia. The death of President Trajkovski is a tragedy. Macedonia has lost a true leader. The international community has lost a strong voice for peace and co-operation. On the passing of President Trajkovski, Kerri Houston, Vice President of Policy for Frontiers of Freedom noted, ``President Trajkovski was a courageous leader who sought security, economic progress, and a common national identity for the Macedonian people.'' A truer statement was never uttered. Mr. Trajkovski leaves behind a wife, Vilma, and two children Sara and Stefan. I offer my sympathies to his family and the families of the other victims of this terrible accident.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate something that the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) just said: It is really important to remember that there are laws to protect the woman, and it is important that we strengthen those laws and make sure those laws are solid. But we also need to be concerned about children and unborn children. When we talk about child abuse in this country and we talk about children's protection, often many of the Members who are critical of this bill have been among the leaders in that effort, and I would like to see them join with us in this one. In fact, the poll that the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) referred to also showed that 69 percent of those who consider themselves prochoice support this amendment that causes the perpetrator of a violent action that causes the death of an unborn baby to be charged with murder. In other words, this is not really an abortion debate, this is how do you feel about the legal protections for the unborn baby? And even prochoicers, 69 percent, say they favor this amendment. I want to reiterate some of the points that the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart), who has been the leader of this effort, has also said. We followed the news accounts of the tragic double murder of Laci and Conner Peterson. Not one, but two lives were lost. Under California law, the killing of Laci and Conner is being prosecuted as a double murder with two victims. Unfortunately, in some parts of the country, as well as under Federal law, Laci and Conner's deaths would not be viewed as a crime against two victims, but rather just one. This is clear violation of justice, and the Peterson case has helped highlight this fact. Today we have the opportunity to correct a shortcoming in Federal law that does not allow an unborn child to be identified as a second victim of murder if killed while on a military base or other location under Federal jurisdiction. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, also known as Laci and Conner's Law, would correct that loophole and ensure that the perpetrator of the double murder be prosecuted and punished accordingly. It is unbelievable to me that some Members of Congress would like Federal law to only recognize the death of one victim in such cases under Federal jurisdiction. That would not get the same protection as Laci and Conner Peterson did. The Lofgren one-victim substitute amendment which will be allowed to be offered under the rule is offensive to those who have lost loved ones. Mr. Speaker, everyone has followed the news accounts of the tragic double murder of Laci and Conner Peterson in California just before Christmas in December 2002. Not one, but two lives were lost as was plainly evident when the bodies of both Laci and Conner washed up on the shore many months later. Under California law, the killing of Laci and Conner is being prosecuted as a double murder with two victims. Unfortunately, in some parts of the country, as well as under Federal law, Laci and Conner's deaths would not be viewed as a crime against two victims, but rather one. This is a clear violation of justice--and the Peterson case has helped highlight this fact. Consistently, in poll after poll, 80 percent of Americans say they believe there are two victims in the killing of a pregnant mother and her unborn baby. Today, we have the opportunity to correct a shortcoming in Federal law that does not allow an unborn child to be identified as a second victim of murder if killed while on a military base or any other location of Federal jurisdiction. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, also known as ``Laci and Conner's Law,'' would correct that loophole and ensure that the perpetrator of the double murder be prosecuted and punished accordingly. It is unbelievable to me that some Members of Congress would like Federal law to only recognize the death of one victim in cases such as the murder of Laci and Conner Peterson. The Lofgren one-victim substitute amendment, which will be allowed to be offered under the rule we are debating, is patently offensive to the relatives of double murder victims who simply want justice to be done in the prosecution of the individuals who killed their loved ones. Sharon Rocha, the mother of Laci Peterson, has expressed her opposition to the Lofgren amendment. In a recent letter, she stated: I hope that every legislator will clearly understand that adoption of such a single-victim amendment would be a painful blow to those, like me, who are left alive after a two-victim crime, because Congress would be saying that Conner and other innocent unborn victims like him are not really victims-- indeed that they never really existed at all. But our grandson did live. He had a name, he was loved, and his life was violently taken from him before he ever saw the sun. While the Peterson case might be the most widely known two-victim murder case at this time, many other families have also experienced the incredible pain of having lost a daughter or sister or spouse who was pregnant with an unborn child at the time of her murder. These families, too, are calling on Congress to bring about justice and enact the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. The rule under consideration now is fair to both sides, allowing for both a substitute amendment and a motion to recommit. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the rule. Tomorrow, as we come to vote on the base bill and the substitute amendment, I hope my colleagues will consider the plea of Sharon Rocha, Laci Peterson's mother, and reject the one-victim substitute. There were two victims in the murder of Laci and Conner Peterson, and in their honor, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) missed Wendy's, an Ohio-based company, in his speech. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address one of our Nation's oldest and most difficult narcotics problems, prescription drug abuse. Prescription drug abuse has been a problem for decades, but recently a new generation of morphinelike painkillers called oxycodones has caused a wave of addiction and overdoses. The drug OxyContin, which is an oxycodone-based drug, has produced the greatest amount of publicity, but numerous similar drugs, such as Percocet, Percodan and Tylox, have also been abused. Last month the Committee on Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, which I chair, held a hearing on prescription drug abuse in Winter Park, Florida. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), the former chair of the subcommittee and a man with a long record of effective leadership on these issues, requested the hearing in response to a series of OxyContin-related deaths in central Florida. At the hearing the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) and I, joined by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller) heard testimony from government, medical and other witnesses about the cost of prescription drug abuse, the benefits afforded by these drugs, and how best to balance these two. But more must be done to ensure in striking this balance that we enforce the law, that we educate people about how to avoid such addiction, and more treatment specifically targeted towards such addiction. Prescription drug abuse presents special problems for the government, the medical community, and the pharmaceutical industry. On the one hand these powerful and dangerous drugs, with as great a capacity for addiction and abuse as heroin and cocaine, even though they have that potential, there are many ways for these drugs which have legitimate uses to fall in the wrong hands. Supplies of the drugs can be stolen from pharmacies and manufacturers and then sold back in the black market; doctors may intentionally or unintentionally over prescribe the drugs to patients, leading to addiction and abuse; or patients themselves may obtain illegal quantities of the drugs by shopping for multiple prescriptions and filling them at multiple pharmacies. On the other hand, these drugs have legitimate medical uses and may give the only possibility of relief for patients suffering from severe chronic pain. Many cancer patients rely on OxyContin and similar drugs. But however difficult it may be to strike a balance, we must find a way to further enforce the laws so we do not have this exploding abuse of these drugs that are crippling many families and individuals and leading to the death of many others. Prescription drug abuse is a very serious problem. According to the most recent study conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SAMHSA, in 2002, over 1.9 million Americans aged 12 or older had used OxyContin alone for nonmedical, in other words illegal, purposes. Prescription drug abuse is far more widespread than cocaine, heroin or ecstasy abuse. Only marijuana is more widely abused by Americans. The problem is particularly acute among our young people. For example, among 12- and 13-year-olds, more children abuse prescription drugs than even marijuana. One of the first things that became clear to me during the hearing is that the Federal Government needs to obtain and share better information on how these drugs are falling into the wrong hands. One newspaper reported that the top 12 OxyContin prescribers under Medicaid in Florida wrote prescriptions totaling over $15 million. While that is a very large number, it does not include all of the non-Medicaid prescriptions. The government has no practical way of keeping track of who is prescribing these drugs, in what amounts, and to whom. A number of States and many of my colleagues have proposals for setting up a computerized database to keep track of these drugs. While some may raise privacy concerns about such a database, if we do not get this information to law enforcement, we will never get a handle on the problem. Second, there are simply too many ways for these drugs to fall into the wrong hands. As the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) noted at the hearing, it is possible for children to go on the Internet and order OxyContin or other opiates without going to a physician. Even when children do not do that, they can often get the drugs by raiding their parents' medicine cabinets or getting them from their friends. We need more effective regulations and education to cut down on these very real and dangerous routes of drug diversion. I am encouraged by the recent decision of the DEA to explore putting hydrocodone combination drugs, which are based on another drug similar to oxycodone, on Schedule II to reflect their real potential for abuse. I hope the DEA, FDA and other agencies will continue to reexamine their strategies to find more effective ways to combat this problem. Finally, while it is clear that there are widely diverging opinions about what kinds of conditions these drugs are prescribed for, it is equally clear that the more uses the government approves, the more abuse we will have. There is a great deal of debate about whether OxyContin should be prescribed for moderate as opposed to severe pain. We will see this debate in connection with nearly every powerful drug because there will always be those who wish to push the envelope and approve the drug for more and more people, thus creating more and more potential for addiction and abuse. Those of my colleagues who consider themselves sympathetic to so- called ``medical marijuana'' should take heed of this. While many of its proponents claim that marijuana would only be used medicinally, it is also used by many others for less serious conditions.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I am so sick and tired of listening to the whining about this fence and walls in Israel. First, when I heard the complaining about the wall in Israel, I wondered whether they were complaining about the wall around Jerusalem itself. Walls and fences in the Middle East are as historic as the land itself. I was just in Germany, and in pretty much every city they have a castle or a walled fort. That is true all over Europe, Austria, and other places. Walls and fences have been there historically, and they were not to keep people from leaving. They were to keep people from getting in. They were built in areas where there were disputed territories, or they would not have needed a wall if people were not going to attack them. In Rome, we see all sorts of walls in different parts of the Roman Empire. It is a historic tradition in Europe. And, of course, there is the Great Wall of China that goes for thousands of miles and is fairly famous. When we look at our own country, let us say the border with Mexico where we have a fence that goes along the border with Mexico, or let us say gated neighborhoods in the United States, are we suddenly going to ban gated neighborhoods? Is the rule when we want to put a fence around our yard or security system at our house in order to keep people from intruding, are we going to say suddenly we need to unlock our doors and we can put no fences up in our own yards? It is the same basic principle of security and the right to protect your property and the people that live in it that is leading to all this whining about the fence in Israel. Furthermore, some would add that it is disputed territory. The fact that somebody else has designs on the territory does not mean that you cannot put up a fence. Let us take our border with Mexico. There are some in the country of Mexico that believe that us getting California through a war where we had a clear overt pressure was kind of controversial, not to mention the Gasden Purchase where we more or less forced Mexico to sell us Arizona and New Mexico, or where we pushed settlers into Texas and Texas declared their independence and we did a fast recognition to bring Texas in. There are many Mexicans who do not believe that border is legitimate, but does that mean we do not have a right as a Nation, since we recognize those States, we freely associate and recognize them that way, that we do not have a right to put a fence there to protect ourselves from terrorists, illegal immigrants or drugs? Of course we have that right; and so does Israel have that right. Since September 2000, Palestinian terrorists have launched more than 18,000 attacks, killing more than 800 Israelis and wounding 5,600. Such a high number of attacks seem inconsistent with the Palestinian Authority's commitment under the Oslo Accords and Road Map to curb terrorist activities. Without a true partner in peace, Israel alone has been left to defend itself. One of the best methods of protecting the citizens of Israel is a security fence. In the last 3 years, not one of the 122 homicide bombers that killed 454 people in Israel infiltrated from Gaza. Gaza is separated from Israel by a security fence. Despite this, there has been outrage and wide criticism when they have tried to put a fence at the West Bank. This case, which has now been taken to the court in front of the United Nations, is clearly within Israel's domestic jurisdiction, which demands that a government protects its citizens. Highlighting this necessity was a bombing of a Jerusalem bus that just killed eight and injured 60. This homicide bombing occurred just before the international court began hearing the case against the fence. The need for additional security and the need for the fence in Israel has never been more clear. I am sick and tired of the whining and hypocrisy of many around the world who have built their own fences, built their own walls for thousands of years, and now want to stop Israel from defending itself. Shortly after achieving independence in 1948, the newly formed State of Israel was set upon by its Arab neighbors. Despite an overwhelming opposing force, the fledgling country defeated its attackers. Since that time, Israel has been buffeted by harassment and violence in varying degrees of intensity. In each attack, whether by neighboring states or terrorist groups, Israel has admirably safeguarded its people and defended its borders. While Israel has long worked to protect its people, Palestinian Arabs have only recently shown a willingness to dismantle terrorist networks and confiscate illegal weapons. Unfortunately, whether through complete duplicity or half-hearted enforcement of their commitments, terrorist attacks against Israelis continue. Regrettably, there is no sign of any serious effort on the part of the Palestinian Authority to take any action against terrorists. Since September 2000, Palestinian terrorists have launched more than 18,000 attacks, killing more than 800 Israelis and wounding 5,600. Such a high number of attacks seem inconsistent with the Palestinian Authority's commitment under the Oslo Accords and Road Map to curb terrorist activities. Without a true partner in peace, Israel alone has been left to defend itself. One of the best methods of protecting the citizens of Israel is the security fence. In the last three years, not one of the 122 homicide bombers that killed 454 people in Israel infiltrated from Gaza. Gaza is separated from Israel by a security fence. Despite the proven effectiveness of the Gaza security fence, Israel's recent decision to build a similar security fence around the West Bank has been roundly criticized. In an effort to half the construction of the fence, a suit has been filed in the International Court of Justice. This case is unprecedented in the history of the court. The court was set up to adjudicate international disputes between two members of the United Nations. In this case, the dispute is not between two U.N. members--the Palestinian Authority is not a member of the United States. The actual U.N. member involved, Israel, has not agreed to the hearing. This case falls squarely within Israel's domestic jurisdiction which demands that the government protect its citizens. Highlighting this necessity was the bombing of a Jerusalem bus that killed 8 and injured 60. This homicide bombing occurred just before the International Court began hearing the case against the fence. The need for additional security and the need for the fence has never been more clear. Opponents argue that the fence poses undue hardship to Palestinian Arabs by limiting their employment opportunities or separating them from other Arabs and each other. Certainly, the fence poses a hardship to Palestinian Arabs. The extra security will undoubtedly cause difficulties when moving from the West Bank into Israel but the Israeli government has done its best to be as accommodating as possible. In most places, the fence follows the pre-1967 border. Israel has provided passageways for Palestinian Arab farmers to tend their fields, replanted trees uprooted by fence construction, and protected a water reservoir used by West Bank farmers. In recent days, Israel has shortened the fence citing among its considerations the impact on Palestinian Arabs living near the fence. As obliging as Israel has been in constructing the security fence, Israel should never be forced to sacrifice its security for convenience. Palestinian Arabs tired of Israel's security measures need only demand that their leaders live up to their commitments to rein in terrorist groups based in the West Bank and Gaza. It is unfortunate that opponents denounce Israel for protecting itself while ignoring the terrorist attacks that precipitated the need for the fence. At $1.6 million per mile, I am sure that Israel would prefer to spend its money elsewhere. Unfortunately, the current level of terrorist activity precludes Israel from doing that. Israel does not wish harm upon its neighbors. Since its establishment, it has only wished to live in peace. Regrettably, Israel's neighbors have never shared this vision. Relentless attacks have forced the Israelis to take steps that seem punitive but only serve to defend the State of Israel and its citizens. I applaud Israel's security measures. Israel simply has done what the United States of America does everyday, which is protect its citizens from forces that would harm or destroy them.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, it needs to be absolutely clear that this amendment would in fact roll back civil rights protections in the United States. Religious organizations have long had protections that this amendment would roll back. The hiring protections in title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, were included in the 1998 Community Services Block Grant authorization. And the President at that time, Bill Clinton, supported this clause directly for social services block grant because he realized that to do so and change anything else regarding this would mean that we would be rolling back civil rights protections for faith-based organizations and churches across the country. We have long had these types of debates. And one of the things that very much concerns me that those on the other side are doing, as well as some on our side are doing, are muddying up what are very clear waters. Let us make some things absolutely clear. You cannot proselytize, you cannot use public funds under current law, or under the bill that this House is considering to proselytize. It might be part of the goal of your mission that in providing, say, soup to the hungry or shelter to the homeless or helping someone who is dying of AIDS, the reason you are doing it may be Christian and you may be a Christian mission and talking about and viewing this as a holistic part of your mission, but when you are giving the soup, you cannot require a prayer. When you are giving shelter, you cannot require somebody to have a statement of faith when you are providing those services. The question is not whether we are going to fund Bible studies or fund prayer or that type of thing. The question is can organizations who want to maintain, from their point of view, their organization's statement of faith, whether they be orthodox Jews, whether they be fundamentalist Christians, whether they be fundamentalist Muslims, do they have to change their fundamental mission to hire people who do not share that mission in order to provide soup to the hungry. Giving a bowl of soup to somebody does not require proselytizing them. They can proselytize on their own dime; they can raise money on their own dime. The question comes when they are doing those services, does the fact that you believe your organization wants to have people of like mind working with it and that you hire people of like mind mean you can no longer provide soup to the hungry? Let me give Members a couple of specific examples. We have been having a series of oversight hearings on faith-based initiatives around the country, including Chicago, Nashville, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and Colorado Springs. We have been having a full debate at each hearing where we have had people from Jewish organizations who are more secular who do not agree with the position that I am arguing today, and with different organizations like Catholic Charities where they set up separate foundations where they will hire people who do not necessarily share their faith as opposed to directly through the Church. But at every hearing, we have heard from organizations who will not be able to access Federal funds if they have to change their hiring practices. The amendment before us now would not allow the organizations to participate in providing soup, if they don't change their hiring practices. And by coming down constantly to the floor and saying or implying that these organizations are proselytize is confusing many religious groups around the country. With Federal dollars, they cannot proselytize. The Court has clearly ruled that the software on the computer cannot be paid by the Federal Government if it has any proselytizing in it. But the computer itself does not evangelize. The computer itself does not have a religious message. A school bus taking kids to a camp does not have a religious message in it. If they are going to use the school bus, they cannot put on the side ``Jesus Saves You'' if it is paid for with government dimes. At the same time, they can be transported to a place that has different messages. For example, we allow this with Catholic schools in the country. Is the other side of the aisle proposing that Catholic schools can no longer receive assistance under IDEA or Title I, that Catholic schools can no longer receive assistance in the form of basic things to their schools? Of course not. We have done this for years. What we cannot do is provide religious instruction materials for Catholic schools or other schools. This amendment, if passed, would suddenly pull out whole groups of people who view part of their mission, and I myself am an evangelical Christian, it is telling people like me who want to belong to an organization of evangelical Christians who believe part of our mission is to help the poor, that unless we bring in people who do not share our mission, we cannot even compete to provide assistance to the poor. Quite frankly, most of these groups do not want to touch it. What I have been able to hear in the different hearings were many people coming forth saying they were afraid that the Federal Government is now going to reach their long arm into our churches and start telling us who to hire and fire, and that is just not acceptable. Mr. Chairman, the Woolsey amendment would in effect gut civil rights protections for all sorts of religious groups, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant; and it would be a travesty if we go backwards in allowing people from their own hearts to want to help the poor. Although this provision appears innocuous, in fact this language is a blow that will serve to gut the faith-based provision in the law that allows faith-based organizations to retain their religious character while providing federally funded social services. All beneficiaries and potential beneficiaries are protected from discrimination based on religion. At Committee, Chairman Boehner offered an amendment that was accepted which codified the regulatory provision (45 CFR 1050.3(e)) regarding the treatment of beneficiaries. Specifically, the amendment stated that a ``religious organization that receives funds under an applicable program, shall not, in providing program services or benefits, discriminate against a program beneficiary or prospective program beneficiary on the basis of religion or a religious belief.'' Additionally, the CSBG law and regulations both prohibit a faith- based organization from using CSBG funds for religious activities. Section 679(c), states that ``[n]o funds provided directly to a religious organization to provide assistance under any program . . . shall be expended for sectarian worship, instruction, or proselytization.'' In Section 1050.3(c), the regulations state that a religious organization may not ``expend any direct funding under the applicable program to support any inherently religious activities, such as worship, religious instruction, or proselytization'' (45 CFR 1050.3(c)). Opponents have made the argument that Chief Justice Rehnquist's majority opinion in Bowen v. Kendrick requires the addition of this language, arguing that it was ``one of the most important reasons'' that the Court had found the funding of a faith-based organization constitutional was because it ``did not `discriminate' on the basis of religion and operated its government-funded services in a secular manner.'' However, a careful reading of the opinion reveals neither of those points to be valid. The excerpt from the opponents about the faith-based organization not ``discriminating'' failed to note that in the full quote (copied below) the phrase was modified by ``particularly when'' indicating that the decision was valid even before getting to that issue--so it was not ``one of the most important reasons.'' ``We note in addition that this Court has never held that religious institutions are disabled by the First Amendment from participating in publicly sponsored social welfare programs. To the contrary, in Bradfield, v. Roberts, 175 U.S. 291, 20 S.Ct. 121, 44 L.Ed. 168 (1899), the Court upheld an agreement between the Commissioners of the District of Columbia and a religiously affiliated hospital whereby the Federal Government would pay for the construction of a new building on the grounds of the hospital. In effect, the Court refused to hold that the mere fact that the hospital was `conducted under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church' was sufficient to alter the purely secular legal character of the corporation, id., at 298, 20 S.Ct., at 124, particularly in the absence of any allegation that the hospital discriminated on the basis of religion or operated in any way inconsistent with its secular character. In the Court's view, giving of Federal aid to the hospital was entirely consistent with the Establishment Clause, and the fact that the hospital was religiously affiliated was `wholly immaterial.' Ibid. The propriety of this holding, and the long history of cooperation and interdependency between governments and charitable or religious organizations is reflected in the legislative history of the AFLA.'' (Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U.S. 589, 609 (1987)). As for the ``lawful and secular'' claim, again the full quote (copied below) is illustrative. It shows that it was only when there was a concern that funds might be used for religious indoctrination)-- which is not permitted under CSBG--was further scrutiny needed. ``But nothing in our prior cases warrants the presumption adopted by the District Court that religiously affiliated AFLA grantees are not capable of carrying out their functions under the AFLA in a lawful, secular manner. Only in the context of aid to `pervasively sectarian' institutions have we invalidated an aid program on the grounds that there was a `substantial' risk that aid to these religious institutions would, knowingly or unknowingly, result in religious indoctrination.'' (Id., at 612) (internal cites omitted). Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources Hearing on ``Faith-based Perspectives on the Provision of Community Services, Los Angeles, California'' Monday, January 12, 2004 Tim Hooten, Executive Director, Office of Ministry and Service, Asuza Pacific University: Mr. Souder: Have you ever had any complaints from any organization that any of your students started sharing the faith and did not represent the organization? Mr. Hooten: No, quite the opposite. Especially Foothill AIDS project, for instance. I had a phone call with their Executive Director recently, just asked how are things going there. And he said, you know what--and my question was with concern, like are students causing a problem there. And he said, you know what? Your volunteers are my best volunteers because they really have a heart for these young men and women who are dying. Mr. Souder: And why do you believe they have that heart? Mr. Hooten: I believe because they feel that they are there to serve the Christ within the people that they are seeing. As far as my perspective on what the New Testament, as a response to the Old Testament is that when I serve someone, I am actually getting to serve Christ. So it is incarnational in that they be the presence of Christ as they serve Christ. Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Drug Policy and Human Resources Hearing on ``The role of Faith-Based Organizations in Providing Effective Social Services'' Wednesday, July 2, 2003, Victory Fellowship Annex, San Antonio, Texas Excerpted comments from the testimony of Greg Kepferle, Executive Director of Catholic Charities of Central New Mexico and Catholic Charities of Santa Fe. Mr. Kepferle: With Catholic Charities we want to make sure our Title VII exemption under the civil Rights Act is protected, that as a religiously sponsored organization we have the right to hire people who are Catholic and/or who have an understanding of Catholic social teaching; however, in actual practice because of--you know, we're looking for the competent staff with skills and we're serving a very diverse population that we are retaining that right only in select positions. For example, executive director or positions that are working specifically with parishes or within specific faith- based projects that we have, so we want to make sure that that which is already in the law and we have that right, we want to make sure that's protected. But as a matter of actual practice our hiring practices we hire very diverse staff. We don't for most positions inquire in terms of their religious background or affiliation. Mr. Sounder: You don't inquire? Mr. Kepferle: We don't inquire, but we want to make sure we still have that right to do that because just with any organization you want to make sure that, you know, the--if you're selling shoes, you want to make sure that the person that's out there selling shoes wears shoes and believes in that. I mean, just with any business. In our mission it's the mission of following the teaching of the Catholic Church and carrying that out.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. (Mr. SOUDER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3493, the Medical Devices Technical Corrections Act of 2003. This bill will help ensure medical devices are quickly approved and sent to market as intended by the Medical Device User Fee Modernization Act of 2002. In particular, the bill will clarify FDA third-party inspection requirements to ensure companies can use third-party inspectors for two consecutive inspections. Additionally, the legislation will authorize HHS to conduct a study to identify barriers to market entry for pediatric products, which often help small populations and, therefore, are not profitable to manufacturers. These clarifications are critical to the medical device industry in the United States, which leads the world in the development and manufacturing of medical technology. Medical device companies produce nearly $78 billion annually and generate nearly 6 percent annual growth. The products produced by these companies have a tremendous impact on our country's economy by creating great high-paying American jobs and consistently generating annual trade surpluses in the billions of dollars. Advances in medical technology are improving the quality of life for people around the world as new and more effective treatments for various diseases and medical conditions are developed. New medical technology also helps reduce the cost of health care and Medicare as health problems are prevented and treated more easily through early detection, less invasive procedures and faster recovery times for the patient. The medical device industry is critical to the economy of Indiana as well as the district I represent, Indiana's 3rd district. A large majority of the nation's orthopaedic devices are produced in Warsaw, Indiana, where DePuy, Zimmer and Biomet, three of the Nation's leading companies in orthopaedic devices are located. These companies control more than 60 percent of the global market share of orthopaedic joint replacements and generate $4 billion dollars annually in sales. The combined economic and societal impacts of these three companies to my district and the state are highly significant. I commend the House for summarily passing H.R. 3493 and I encourage my colleagues in the other body to vote in favor of H.R. 3493, the Medical Devices Technical Corrections Act of 2003.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I first want to praise the gentleman for his continuing efforts in this often, and previously, ignored region of the world. He has been an expert in Russia for a long time. I believe he said 33 different trips to Russia, someone who is a familiar face there, who will go nose to nose with the Russians, and at the same time the Russians know he will be back again and again and again. He is our friend while he is also arguing with us. I have watched the gentleman practice that in tough negotiations with Russia and prepare himself for the other types of things that he has been working with in this troubled region of the world. He has spent time in the Ukraine, in Georgia. His commitment to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and the so-called ``Stans'' was there long before we had the focus in the recent post-9/11 issues. The gentleman was interested in this for a long time since the Republicans came into control in Congress and even before that in his career. His efforts in North Korea. He has been in the world hot spots before they were known as the world hot spots; therefore, the particular trip that we were able to do, as the gentleman has explained tonight, we cannot overstate the gentleman's role and the connections and how these things are connected. Because the gentleman is involved in the energy, he got to know Mohammar Khadafi's son, who would enable us to get into places we were never able to get in and help facilitate the breakthrough that we are having in Libya. The gentleman deserves that credit. No matter how many times it is said, the fact remains that we were able to get into places that we were not able to get into, that Americans would not have been able to get into had the gentleman not been spending a lot longer than just the most recent time, but time way before that. I thank the gentleman very much for that. Let me kind of reinforce a couple of things that the gentleman said. First, I would like to start with Libya because there were many of us, and let me just in my little piece that I got to say to the leader, Mr. Khadaffi, it was very clear. I said, look, I am a fundamentalist Christian. I am a strong supporter of Israel. I am one of your critics. But at the same time, and I did not particularly like some of the things he was claiming to be, this great democracy and how great socialism was working. We did not agree. But he said it in a debating type of way, probably a little nicer than some of the debate we had here earlier this evening. It was a good discussion. He seems to want to start to communicate. While I found some of the things he said offensive or in disagreement, the bottom line is he took a huge step to open up a country that was previously and still is on our terrorist list, that may be networking; and those of us who have seen all sorts of classified things know we have Libyan suspects all over the world for potential networks suspects. If he shuts this down, if he shuts this nuclear development down, look, I am willing to sit through a few lectures. I am willing to talk. If somebody can be moved off the terrorist list, if somebody can be moved off the nuclear list, we can sit down and talk. It does not mean that we are apologizing or that we are agreeing with past things. Okay. What is done is done. If we have a chance at a time when we are under assault all over the world to find a friend who wants to fight al Qaeda, who wants to take on bin Laden, who wants to dismantle, and on the whole I would just as soon they did health research and tried to figure out how to put their nuclear research into desalinization of water. They want our help to try to figure out how to get more water in Libya so they can irrigate. And that is a lot better than developing bombs to blow up our people. His comment that you referred to where he said, we do not know much about Libya, partly we will never know that much about Libya. And some of it was rhetoric and frustration we hear all around the world. But you know what, we did just not know much about Libya. I love to study history. We did not know hardly anything about Libya. Apparently, our government does not either. They were telling the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) that we cannot land there. We do not know how we will be received. They will be hostile. There will be no press coverage. And we landed, and there is not any other way to state this, it was the friendliest place I've even been on a CODEL. Everybody was so excited to see us. Once the leader said, this is okay, all this Americanism is pouring out. The gentleman mentioned the university. They want to get our education. The 38 of the top 40 people have been educated in America. The U.S.-Libyan Friendship Society, there is hundreds of people waiting 3 hours to have lunch with a few Congressmen. The excitement of the whole trip there, you go, something is a disconnect. We do not understand. And at one of the dinners where the Libyan husband of an American citizen asked me, Are you guys over here just to tick off the French? And I said, What? I said, I hate to be an ignorant American here, but why would we be ticking off the French? He said, You do not understand. In North Africa, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, the French and the Italians are viewed as the occupiers. The Americans came in in World War II and liberated us. We like America. And I am thinking, no, no, these are the guys that hate us. It is not that we just do not know much about Libya; we do not know anything. We had it backwards. If they are willing to work with us, hey, look, it is trust but verify. They could have taken us into a nuclear facility. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) knew more than I did because he has been to Russia so many times, he goes, oh, that is a Russian system. Were you working with this university? Were you working with that university? It is clear that the pressure that President Reagan put on communism to get the fall of the Berlin Wall and the change in Russia meant that it also dried up a lot of the assistance they were getting in Libya. And then they had to go into the market to pick up a few things. That knowledge, while the gentleman knows a lot, quite frankly, he said repeatedly, look, there is only so much we can do. The President makes these decisions. We can input. We can help once it goes through, how to put these plans together, but the bottom line is we want nuclear scientists to look at their nuclear facilities. We want experts to verify what we have heard. What we see is they need it economically. His son, who is the next potential leader, wants to change the country. He is being schooled at the London School of Economics. When you go into Tunisia, you can see the differences between there and Libya. So can all their people next door. They have reasons to want to change. He does not want to be caught in a spider hole like Saddam was. All the evidence suggests that this is real. What the chairman said, to go up to Libya, was a huge breakthrough. The administration is moving rapidly and this may be one of the biggest things in our life time that saves lots. And it is much to the gentleman's credit, and it was a great stop in Libya. I only want to mention one thing about Iraq because I agree with everything the gentleman has stated about that, from everything to morale to others; but I supported and the gentleman mentioned about getting General Dayton in here and the weapons of mass destruction, trying to understand that the consultants somehow got more high profile than the people that are actually running the weapons of mass destruction program, that there are multiple directions here; but what I wanted to comment on particularly was the spider hole itself. It taught me something else with this that I have been trying to communicate back home as well. That hole was not very big. I am not a particularly big person, maybe a little overweight but not that much, but I did not fit into the hole very well. The bigger you were, the tighter it was. The taller you were, the tighter it was. It was a very small hole. What we heard was that there was inside information, we had already been to that farm twice looking for it, looking for him. Saw nothing. Then inside information, not voluntarily given, told them where it was. They went in with Special Forces and still did not find it. Found a different hole. Then they had to go back and get a drawn map to go. First off, if you think of the hole as very small and the part where he would go down into basically like a casket with a higher ceiling, there was not much room when you got down in there. You could not move barely at all. No wonder he was disoriented. If he had American troops tromping around above him while they are making several visits with a little tube going down, he was probably getting very little oxygen, it was dark, there was no food, it is not like it is a lighted well-structured cell. It was a little dirt box that he was in. And if it is that hard by the time they put the grass over the top of it and something over the top of that, there was no way even Special Forces with a map could find it. Put this in the context of weapons of mass destruction. If you cannot find Saddam when you have a map from his top staffers, and you have your top forces searching for it with a map and it takes you two runs, we may never find some of this stuff. Just because we do not find it does not mean it does not exist. We have already proven it was worthwhile to go in there because they were clearly developing. The other thing was in going down to the Believer's Palace at the bottom, when we went down and saw the supposed place where he would feed back all this stuff to us and we were one of the first groups, I believe they had just opened up the basement there, and you saw the ability to put 200 of his special guards and his cabinet and himself in there. What we saw was not only the masks that you always hear about, chemical and biological masks, but they had controls on the wall for different types of chemical and biological weapons to control the air systems and other things. This guy was not preparing for conventional war. Whether he was preparing now or a year from now or 2 years from now may be debated, but he was getting ready to fight an unconventional war. In Afghanistan, which was one of my primary goals to talk again to President Karzai, who I met here as well as the former King, about narcotics. Afghan heroin is again flooding the market. We have major obligations here with Afghanistan. As the King said in Rome, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) took the first delegation in. We followed shortly after that, and the King told me at that time, we used to grow all sorts of crops where they now do poppy, and Afghanistan is often remembered when there is trouble, but then you forget us because we are a poor country that gets run over by all the major powers. My people are hungry. I have never seen a country without a middle class or even nice hotels. It was a suburb of hell, quite frankly, in Kabul. They need help. Yet at the same time, I think 85 percent of the people turned out in a recent election even though al Qaeda was threatening to kill them. They are excited. They have a multiparty system, multicandidates running. We have to figure out how to get them off the heroin because their farmers are not making that much from heroin. It is going to middle men. And these middle men that are making the money are often tied to the terrorist networks. They use narcotics, human trafficking and other illegal substances to fund it. So what I was trying to explain and President Karzai has been helpful, the general, the nephew I think of the King, said that we need Special Forces, Afghani Special Forces to go in after the heroin because the RPGs and the bombs and the suicide bombers are getting funded in Afghanistan largely by the fact that when the heroin poppy goes into market, that money then gets to middle men who take that money to buy armaments and to build al Qaeda and other terrorist networks around the world. It is a very close link between drugs and terrorism, a very close link to reestablishing the control in Afghanistan. They have the will. They are turning out to vote at greater rates than we are. They are excited about the freedom. Women have their first freedom. We have an American-educated leader who really is dynamic in what he wants to do in Afghanistan, a King who has shown his commitment for 40 years and then transferring it to democratic power there. I was hopeful for Afghanistan even though it is a very tough country that has been abused by every major power through world history for hundreds and hundreds of years. This was an eye-opening trip. It was a tremendous privilege to be allowed on it. I commend the gentleman for leading a breakthrough in Libya, major steps in Iraq, and showing the courage to go into Afghanistan even when people were telling us, the day we were still going in, do not go in there. It is not safe right now; we went in. President Karzai was able to go in front of his media and say, look, the Americans are here. They are backing us up. They are not bailing out just because two suicide bombers hit us in the last few days and somebody hit an ammunition dump. We are not retreating. This is real. It is not just the President; it is the Congress that is behind you. I thank the gentleman for his leadership.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3493, the Medical Devices Technical Corrections Act of 2003. This bill will help ensure medical devices are quickly approved and sent to market as intended by the Medical Device User Fee Modernization Act of 2002. In particular, the bill will clarify FDA third-party inspection requirements to ensure companies can use third-party inspectors for two consecutive inspections. Additionally, the legislation will authorize HHS to conduct a study to identify barriers to market entry for pediatric products, which often help small populations and, therefore, are not profitable to manufacturers. These clarifications are critical to the medical device industry in the United States, which leads the world in the development and manufacturing of medical technology. Medical device companies produce nearly $78 billion annually and generate nearly 6 percent annual growth. The products produced by these companies have a tremendous impact on our country's economy by creating great high-paying American jobs and consistently generating annual trade surpluses in the billions of dollars. Advances in medical technology are improving the quality of life for people around the world as new and more effective treatments for various diseases and medical conditions are developed. New medical technology also helps reduce the cost of health care and Medicare as health problems are prevented and treated more easily through early detection, less invasive procedures and faster recovery times for the patient. The medical device industry is critical to the economy of Indiana as well as the district I represent, Indiana's 3rd district. A large majority of the nation's orthopaedic devices are produced in Warsaw, Indiana, where DePuy, Zimmer and Biomet, three of the Nation's leading companies in orthopaedic devices are located. These companies control roughly 40 percent of the global market share of orthopaedic joint replacements and generate $4 billion dollars annually in sales. The combined economic and societal impacts of these three companies to my district and the state are highly significant. I commend the House for summarily passing H.R. 3493 and I encourage my colleagues in the other body to vote in favor of H.R. 3493, the Medical Devices Technical Corrections Act of 2003.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and applaud the European Union for agreeing to toughen antidrug laws and urging actions to end drug tourism to the Continent. After more than 2 years of negotiations, EU ministers reached a landmark agreement on November 27 to toughen antidrug laws and to harmonize the Continent's laws to make the bloc more efficient in the fight against illegal drugs. The laws cover all types of drug-dealing, ranging from local networks to large-scale international operations. Under the agreed rules, offering, selling or producing drugs would be sanctioned with maximum jail terms of at least 1 to 3 years. In cases involving large-scale international drug trafficking, sanctions should be at least 5 to 10 years. Member states also agreed on a declaration stressing the importance of fighting drug tourism. The EU's united stand against drug abuse strengthens global efforts to prevent drug abuse and to put away drug pushers and others, including terrorists, who financially benefit from destructive drug addiction. It is disappointing that the EU agreement will allow the so-called ``coffee shops'' in the Netherlands, where marijuana can be legally abused, to remain open. I am, however, encouraged that the Netherlands is investigating possible approaches that would end U.S. drug tourism to Amsterdam. Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner has stated that the Netherlands Government is considering rules under which ``coffee shops'' would only be allowed to sell drugs to Dutch residents as part of its obligation to dissuade tourists from going to Amsterdam for drugs. Under his proposal, only Dutch residents with identity cards would be allowed to use the cannabis cafes. This move would protect Americans visiting Amsterdam from the dangers of engaging in drug abuse. Currently, foreign tourists, including Americans, make up about 40 percent of the ``coffee shop'' sales in Amsterdam, according to the London Times. I also hope that this agreement will further our international efforts to control the trafficking of ecstasy and other dangerous synthetic drugs. In recent years, traffickers have set up their illegal manufacturing operations in countries like the Netherlands in hopes of avoiding tough penalties if they are caught. This agreement should send a clear signal to the cartels that Europe and the U.S. will continue to work together to break up these international drug rings. Furthermore, I am encouraged that the Netherlands has also agreed to increase its sanctions for the possession of small quantities of marijuana to a year from 1 month. These are important steps that I hope will eventually lead to stiffer penalties for all drug abuse. It is increasingly clear that every nation must play a role in educating the public as to why drug abuse is harmful and in preventing drug addiction. As long as one country tolerates the production, sale or distribution of any illegal drugs, other nations, communities and families are vulnerable to the threats caused by drug abuse that is easily transported across borders. The EU's commitment to not tolerate drug abuse and drug tourism protects not only the families and communities of Europe, but also families and communities here and elsewhere in the world. Again, I applaud this agreement and look forward to working with these and other countries to further strengthen international drug laws and to protect children from the dangers of drug abuse and addiction.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments, and this is not a matter of condemning Americans. It is a matter of trying to develop a fully holistic policy to try to reduce drug and alcohol abuse. The fact is the President of the United States in his amazing address last night again acknowledged he overcame his addiction, or at least overuse of alcohol. One of my favorite commentators, Rush Limbaugh, had to battle with an addiction with OxyContin. Clearly, it strikes all types of people. It is not just the stereotypical people. And we need to reach out to people who are hurting and try to help them recover. We need to make sure that part of that is eliminating the temptation as much as possible, trying to keep the prices high enough, the supply low enough. We need to try to make sure there is an accountability on the dealers and those who are using it so they know if they want public money, whether it is if they are going to a public school, that there is going to be an accountability and somebody watching them for their own good and that there is also going to be help there in treatment and follow-up if they need it. Does the gentleman from California want to make a comment?

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. Mr. Speaker, last night the President highlighted the success of our Nation's drug strategy. I applaud the President for the success of his strategy and for highlighting this issue in the State of the Union Address. Across the Nation, the latest study found there has been an 11-percent decline in drug use by 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students over the past 2 years. This finding translates into 400,000 fewer teens using drugs and is the first real decline nationally in 12 years. Our own local survey done by the Coalition for a Drug-Free Greater Cincinnati has shown similar results over the past 3 or 4 years. This is very encouraging news for parents, teenagers, teachers and everyone else who cares about the welfare of kids. As the President mentioned last night, community involvement is critical to successful drug prevention. Community coalitions are the heart and soul of drug prevention and community action on this important topic. Coalitions help all of us to come together--parents, teachers, coaches, religious leaders, volunteers, law enforcement--to encourage youth to understand that any drug use is not only unacceptable but harmful. Having fewer youths use drugs is important because we know that if young people can abstain from drugs before they graduate from high school, they are much less likely to have drug problems later. The Drug-Free Communities Act is an essential tool that many of our communities utilize to fight illegal drug abuse. Instead of creating new Federal bureaucracies, this program sends Federal money directly to local coalitions working to reduce the demand for drugs through effective education and prevention. Community coalitions are groups of citizens--parents, youths, business, media, law enforcement, religious organizations, civic groups, health care professionals, and others--who are working on local initiatives to reduce and prevent substance abuse. These coalitions are engaged in a wide variety of activities and strategies specifically tailored to the needs of their communities. We know that coalitions are making a difference. Due go the great work of the Coalition for Drug-Free Greater Cincinnati, there was a 41- percent decrease in marijuana use and 23-percent decrease in alcohol use among 7th graders from 1993 to 2000. In a similar region where a coalition did not exist, there was a 33-percent increase in marijuana use and no change in alcohol use. The coalition, which I founded 8 years ago, is a comprehensive, long-term effort to mobilize every sector of the Greater Cincinnati community to take an active role in preventing substance abuse. It brings local community organizations together with business leaders, parents, teens, clergy, law enforcement, and school officials to implement antidrug initiatives, and has become a model for dozens of communities nationwide. I know that there are similar coalitions in more than 5,000 communities nationwide doing this good work and they need our support. The positive results highlighted today indicate that prevention tools like community coalitions work to create safe neighborhoods and a better future for our young people.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to my friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, the subject of this Special Order, and I hope to be joined by several of my colleagues, is going to be narcotics policy in the United States and a number of success stories we have had. We often talk about the problems and challenges as chairman of the Subcommittee on Drug Policy, the committee that has oversight over all drug issues but also authorizing over the Office of National Drug Control Policy, so-called Drug Czar, Director John Walters. We have authorizing and oversight on all drug issues. Before I get directly into the subject of this Special Order, I wanted to say a few words about last night's wonderful address on this floor and to this assembly. If the President had included every single thing of importance and everything we have in our budget, we would still be sitting here this morning. So I first want to thank the President for finishing his speech in 60 minutes. My colleagues were sharing many concerns that I share as well. That is why our budgets are this thick. That is why we debate all year long on appropriations. But the goal of the State of the Union address is to set a basic vision for where our country is headed; and I thought President Bush did a remarkable job of outlining the major challenges that we face. We are not a county or a city council. We are not mayors. We are not governors. First and foremost, this body and the President of the United States and the United States Senate have to do international policy. States and local governments cannot do things like the challenges we faced after 9/11 in trying to root out terrorism in Afghanistan, root out terrorism in the funding and the harboring of terrorists in Iraq, to try to break up these networks worldwide, and the President definitely had his focus on the one thing that only the President can lead in and that was our national security. He said, very eloquently, after the first World Trade Center attack and the bombing occurred there, the people were served with subpoenas, they went through our court process, but then the terrorist groups came back and hit us even bigger. We cannot just issue subpoenas. We have to tackle the problem head-on. He also said in response to some critics that we are not going to get a permission slip to protect the American people. We each took an oath of office to uphold the security of the American people, every Member of this body and the President of the United States, and in spite of all the criticism, it would have been easier to make some compromises last night on some of this stuff but he held firm because he would prefer to win, but if it is necessary to protect American security, he will do what is necessary, and if the people do not understand it and reject him, he can look at himself in the mirror and said I did my best job, I did my best job to defend the American people, I upheld the Constitution to do that. He showed his boldness last night in defending his policies. By the way, both sides stood up and cheered. On these issues, there was not a my-way-or-the-highway approach. I saw both sides of the aisle standing on almost all of his statements on international security, on Iraq, on Afghanistan. I saw bipartisanship. Not every Member of the other party stood, but most did and most supported, at least many of them, the war resolution itself. Let me mention a couple of other specifics. For example, I support veterans assistance, too. In my district, I do not have any active bases. I have lots of guard and reserve units, and I voted for and support the continued effort if we are going to use guard and reserve like the military to try to address pay concerns, and we are not going to have an active voluntary military unless we improve pay and health service and all sorts of things for the veterans. I am on the Select Committee on Homeland Security. I strongly believe we have to do more on the domestic side of homeland security, but fortunately, by disrupting, as the President pointed out, by disrupting the terrorist bases, by disrupting the financial assistance that they have, the places to hide out, they are continuing to try to penetrate us the same ways because they do not have the training grounds in Iraq. They do not have the training grounds in Afghanistan. They do not have the financial networks. They do not have places to hide out right now so we have been able to intercept them, which buys us time to help along the Canadian border, along the Mexican border, to try to get better and faster equipment in our harbors because the cost would be horrendous to try to defend every child care center in America, to try to defend every single harbor, to slow us down so that our goods in the United States go up way in prices as we try to ship them in and out, as we try to check 100 percent at the border. It just cannot work right now. As we move these machines in, for example, many of these machines at the airport cost $1.5 million each. One cannot walk down to Wal-Mart and pick them up. It takes a while for the companies to make them, to implement them at the airports, but because we have disrupted those bases, because they do not have places to hide out, we have not been hit on our soil. Because of the brave men and women in our Armed Forces, they are taking the bullets that were intended for us here. So we have time to develop our domestic homeland security because of the initiatives the President has done. And the fact is, I know those who would like to throw the incumbent party out of office do not like to admit this, but the economy is recovering, and the economy is recovering in spite of 9/11. In spite of the weakness that occurred after 9/11 in the markets exposing the fraud and cheating of companies like Enron and others who are manipulating the markets, in spite of the uncertainties of war, the economy is coming back, and it is coming back more efficient, and the jobs are increasing not at a fast enough rate. Underneath that we have some problems. That is why we have the job retraining because we are having reshifting. I hope we address the Chinese currency question and the unfair trade policies of China that are ripping the guts out of my District just like they are in other places and unnecessarily causing adjustments. The President pointed out we needed an energy bill and we need new health care bills because when we talk about jobs, when we talk to industry and the people who create the jobs and the investors, they want the tax cuts. If the Democrats succeed in raising the taxes, they will kill the recovery because when they say they do not like the President's tax cuts, what they mean is they do not want to vote to extend them, and if we do not extend them, as the President said last night, it is an increase. So, if they increase the taxes, does anybody really believe there will be additional investment to keep our economy recovering? Do people really believe if we increase the taxes on inheritances that small businesses will not disband and continue to sell out to foreign corporations because of inheritance taxes? Do people really believe if we raise capital gains taxes again that people will expand their companies and add jobs in their companies? Do people really believe that if we increase their income taxes, and as the President said last night, everybody who pays taxes got a tax cut. The only people who did not get a tax cut are the people who do not pay income taxes. They did not get an income tax cut because they do not pay income, but if you pay income, you got a tax cut, and by giving more dollars to people, people were able to invest and now help lead the stock market recovery. After 9/11 if we had not given the $600 to individuals, I just cannot imagine where our economy would be, and then the child tax credit, can my colleagues imagine the pressures on families trying to deal with health care and housing costs and clothing costs if all of the sudden the Democrats succeed in taking back the tax credits? We will have a disaster in the economy. That is why the President talked about taxes last night and health care last night and some adjustments; and he talked about Medicare, too, which is important with seniors. The only area where we did not really have bipartisan support was when the President addressed social issue. When he talked about abstinence education, it was really disappointing to see that become a partisan issue. Since when has abstinence before marriage become a partisan issue? That was really sad. Since when did the Defense of Marriage Act, which even President Clinton signed, that said marriage should be between a man and a woman forever, when did that become a partisan issue? When did drug testing and drug prevention programs become partisan? I am concerned about the divides on the social issue area because, in fact, we had the bipartisan support for the Medicare bill. It could not have passed if we had not had literally dozens of Democrats for that bill. The tax bill would not have passed without Democratic support. We would not have been able to pass the war resolution without Democratic support, but on things like faith-based, on abstinence education, defending marriage in the United States, we do need to have bipartisan support. We need help from the other side. We cannot just have those issues be Republican issues, and it was really disturbing last night to see that division, and when it is viewed as the President interjecting partisanship, if he raises the subject of abstinence education, my lands, how is that partisan? If we say I believe marriage should be between a man and a woman that is partisan? Those people who criticize faith-based organizations as being partisan have a problem right now. Where has the consensus and the moral foundations of America gone? I thought the President laid that kind of comprehensive vision, not the particulars that will come in the budget, but the comprehensive vision of a strong America that stands up against evil in the world, wherever it is coming from, an America that is founded on letting people keep their own money, of trying to create job creation, not have Washington drive everything, not having lawsuits drive our economy but having the people that are investing in it drive the economy, and a moral, Judeo-Christian-based foundation in America that treats people decently and accommodates all kinds of religious diversity as people move into our country but understands that faith plays a key role in our Nation. That was the vision he laid out. Now it is our job as Congress to take his budget that he proposes to us and get into the specifics of how we fund the National Guard and what we do in the national parks. I have worked with my colleague from New Jersey on fish and wildlife issues, on human rights issues. We do that stuff on a regular basis, but last night we had an amazing presentation on the basic vision of where we are going in America, and I was excited by that speech. One of the things the President also addressed was a few new anti- narcotics initiatives, but I think a lot of people missed something he said right at the beginning of his new initiatives on drug testing and prevention and trying to correct steroid abuse in the United States, and that is, that we have had a drop in illicit drug usage in the United States of 11 percent in the last 2 years. It is an extraordinary thing. I get a lot of flak as chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources. The drug legalizers groups, and groups funded by George Soros that masquerade as large citizen groups but get their money mostly from George Soros and his few allies who are billionaires to try to legalize drugs in the United States, hiding behind so-called medicinal marijuana which is not medicinal at all, and heroin needles, distribution, free heroin clinics and all this type of stuff, really predominantly a drug legalization movement funded by George Soros and his allies. Those groups do not like me. They do not like anything that comes out of our committee, and they are constantly harassing us. They opposed and were just really crushed when the ONDCP, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the National Ad Campaign passed this House by voice vote. They were just crushed because they had this idea that there was going to be this big uprising and drug policy would be defeated, but the fact is we have done drug policy in a bipartisan way. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), who is the ranking member of the subcommittee, he and I do our best to work together on all issues, to draft the bill together. He had multiple amendments. The gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and I often do not see eye to eye on other things, as the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), the chairman of the full Committee on Government Reform, and I do see eye to eye, and we have our differences at times with the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), but we realized on drug policy we needed to stand together and worked to address the evils. By doing that, we have had a reduction. Often, I will come to the House floor and talk about the problems of Oxycontin and the rise in meth and the struggles in Colombia and Mexico and Canada and in Afghanistan, but the truth is if all we hear is the struggles, we miss the part of the success story, that in fact, the money we have been spending, by raising the struggles, by raising the problems, the money we have been spending has actually been working. Those who are libertarians, or I would call liberal-tarians, whether they be far right or far left anti-government people, want a line and say government programs never work. No government programs can tinker at the edges. Job creation predominantly comes from the private sector, but incentives can help, that in education it should be mostly at the local government but had we not addressed through IDEA and certain civil rights legislation many people in American would not have had a chance, and the Federal Government needed to directly step in. Clearly in housing, had the Federal Government not stepped in in certain areas, there would not be some of that social safety net. That is not the primary. From a concerted perspective, I think it is secondary, but in some groups, it was very primary and important. Same thing in narcotics policy. We have most law enforcement is State and local. Most treatment is State and local or private sector through insurance. Most of these things are done through the private sector, but the government plays a critical role, and let me read a few of the accomplishments this year through the Office of National Drug Control Policy. One of the most visible is the national campaign against marijuana which is probably why there has been such an outcry and an angry frustration with some of our policies, because the one thing they do not want to happen was marijuana. So let me address that a minute. We hear, and as I started to point out, about all the negatives and then we start to think it is not working, but in fact, we have made progress. We have these peaks that drug use in the United States went up in the 1960s, dropped, went up again, dropped under Reagan, went up again. By the way, we would have to reduce drug use in the United States 50 percent to get it back to where it was when President Clinton took office. We can argue with sub-groups in that and some went up higher than others and some drugs went up higher than others, but we are making progress now partly because, quite frankly, we had a balloon when our national policy from 1992 to 1994, our national policy was hear no evil, see no evil, do no evil. From that perspective, what happened was is the President started joking about I did not inhale. They cut the drug czar's office from 120 people down to 23 people. They cut the interdiction money going to South America by dramatic amounts, and guess what, cocaine and heroin flooded into our country. Marijuana flooded our streets. The stigma went off like it did in the 1960s. The grades of marijuana went up in their potency from 5 to 8 percent THC to 15 to 25, in some places, 40 percent THC, where marijuana is as potent and as dangerous as cocaine and sells for that amount in the streets. Those changes in 1992 and 1994 were dramatic. President Clinton, to his credit, after the Republicans took over and after a little bit of arm twisting, brought in General McCaffrey to head the drug czar's office, gave him dollars, and since 1995 we have had pretty steady progress for 8 years. The first couple of years were more to flatten out the trends, then to get like a 2 percent, and last year, there was an 8 percent reduction in marijuana. People who say the national ad campaign does not work are wrong. The fact is, by educating people, not just hammering off over the heads and saying, look, you are going to wind up forever destroyed if you use marijuana, no, not everybody who does winds up destroyed, but you cannot get at cocaine, heroin, meth, oxycontin and other abuses as a whole unless you get at marijuana, because marijuana and alcohol abuse, but for the other hard drugs, marijuana basically is an entry level drug. For every 10 marijuana users, one, or maybe two, counting high-grade marijuana, will move into a harder drug. If you have 100, you will have 10 over here. If you have a thousand, you will have a hundred over here. If you have 10,000, you will have a thousand over here. The percents stay roughly the same. Because once you are introduced, a certain percentage will become addicted, whether psychological or physical. A certain percentage will want a higher hit, a bigger and longer impact of the narcotics. And the next thing you know, you have more addicts. So to make a really dramatic reduction, Director Walters decided to go at marijuana. So the national ad campaign showed all kinds and they studied particularly target youth groups. I hear a lot of people say, I do not see a lot of those ads, or I do not particularly like those ads. Well, guess what, 53-year-old white guys like me are not the primary target. Not saying there are not 53-year-old white guys who are abusing cocaine, but we are not the prime target. We are trying to get people at the entry, at the gateway coming in and getting addicted. By the time you are 53, if you are addicted, you need a treatment program. And we are working with the treatment programs and trying to do that. What we need to do is get at the people as they are coming into the system. I see I have been joined by my colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson), and he has been a leader in the drug- testing area. If I can, let me make a brief introduction on the drug testing. Last night, the President proposed an initiative for $25 million for drug testing. The gentleman from Pennsylvania has been looking at this issue for some time. I worked on this when I was a staffer over on the Senate side with Senator Coates years ago. So let us say this as point blank as we can. Drug-free prevention programs and treatment programs will not work without drug testing. You have to have an accountability. The President last night said that as part of our prevention treatment programs we are going to put in some measurement sticks, just like he talked about in education and just like he talked about in other areas, and one of those things is drug testing. Mr. Speaker, I yield now to my friend from Pennsylvania to talk about a little of that and whatever other issue he wants to talk about.

Mr. SOUDER. I wanted to reiterate the gentleman's last point. This is a prevention and interdiction tool to help reach people before they become heavy addicts. That is why it is targeted at the schools. There is a body of law that has to be followed. This program will be thrown out in any school that does not follow the body of law. In 1989 and 1990 in the omnibus drug bill, my former boss in the Senate, the junior Senator from Indiana, whose name I guess I cannot say here on the floor, that we had an amendment based off of a high school in West Lafayette, Indiana where the baseball team had an outfielder who got hit on the head with a fly ball. And he was a very good fielder. The question was, how did he miss a fly ball? A similar thing happened, I think, to the third baseman. In that process, they decided to drug-test their baseball team. They found that one-third were high. So they decided to put in a policy of drug testing on athletes and then cheerleaders. We took that as an allowable use then in the drug-free school bill, in the 1989-1990 bill, and put that in as an allowable use. It was then attempted to be expanded in Texas and a few other States student-wide. The court initially just upheld where there was extra risk in athletics and then as our colleague from Pennsylvania pointed out, it broadened it in a recent court case to go to the next step. But in the legislation it was very explicit. We also did this in the drug-free workplace. We did it on truck drivers' testing. The test has to be either a total classification or purely random. They cannot say, ``That guy has long hair. I think he's doing drugs. I'm going to test him. I'm not going to test this.'' In a company you need to test the management and the owners, not just the employees. You have to have equitable treatment, including us in Congress should be testing ourselves, even though technically we are exempt from this. If we are going to put it on government employees, we ought to be doing it ourselves in our offices. The second thing is related to that, the type of tests and how you do the tests are by law required. If you are going to use a urine test, there are standards of how you keep that, how you sort it, how you mark it, that you have a second test so you do not get any false positive with it. Hair tests and follicle tests are much better and harder to mix up. There ought to be a logical appeals process with it. In other words, if you deprive people of their civil liberties in the process of this, even students in loco parentis, you got a problem. But the fact is, if you do it right, it is the best prevention and identification deterrent. To share one of the stories from my district, I was at a school which was doing it in athletes. I like drug testing, like both of my colleagues, and proposed that it ought to be used more widely. The student body president objected and said this is a violation of my liberties. A couple of other people objected. And then one student got up and said that he had been abusing marijuana, got caught, his life had been going downhill, that that forced him to confront it just like the gentleman from California referred to and said he talked to his parents, got his life straightened around and he believed drug testing would be good. Then somebody else from the student government objected again and a couple of the other students spoke up. And when we were done, the principal and superintendent came over and said, ``We're implementing school-wide drug testing because every single person who spoke up against it has never had a drug violation or suspected but every one of the kids who spoke up for it had either had a problem or we wondered if they did.'' They were crying out for help, for accountability from adults in a society that does not care. That is another aspect of it. If they think they are going to go to jail, they are not going to speak up, but if they think somebody is going to reach out and love them and help them, I believe, and I believe our policies in the United States need to be focused not on legalizing the behavior, but we recognize that very few actually go to court for one-time marijuana use. You cannot be our age and have gone through the 60s and the 70s without knowing lots of people who did marijuana, and I do not personally know anybody quite frankly who went to prison for just smoking marijuana. If they went to prison for that, they were probably involved either in multiple parties or dealing or driving somebody or something more extensive. As a practical matter, that is what we are trying to bust. My colleague from California and I have strong disagreements about Colombia policy and some other things, but on this type of thing in prevention and the treatment programs, quite frankly, these treatment programs that take all this money and do not want to measure whether their clientele are abusing when they come out, hey, that is a big problem. I thank my colleagues.

Mr. SOUDER. I thank both gentlemen for talking about drug testing. I want to put this a little bit in the context, because that was a critical part of the State of the Union last night to talk about that in particular, but once again as the President said at the front of that section, that, in fact, we have had a reduction in drug use in the United States. That is partly because we have a holistic policy that the drug testing is a key component of the accountability and the measurement. As both of my colleagues have pointed out as well as myself, but particularly the gentleman from California, it is a stigma part that one of the things, I have been to Colombia now about 10 times and in multiple countries, particularly in the Andean region, where because of our demand, because we cannot control our demand, we are disrupting and overturning democracies that have been there for hundreds of years. In Colombia, I think it was actually in Ecuador, in Guayaquil, a young student came up to me and said, why do you keep picking on the Andean nations? When I went to school in the United States, I saw no stigma at all. You could get dope in any college, you could get it from anybody. Why don't you put some stigma? That is partly why I offered the amendment that is a very unpopular amendment but basically says if you get convicted of a drug crime and you are taking money from the taxpayers of the United States you're going to lose your loan. We have had arguments about how that has been interpreted and I do not agree with how it has been interpreted and we are trying to fix that but the bottom line is if you take somebody else's money, you should follow the laws of the United States. We cannot go to Colombia and say stop growing this stuff if we do not do things here like drug testing and that. In Colombia, interestingly in this past year, we have had the most successful year yet, we are still struggling but we have had the most successful year yet in stabilizing at least large sections of that country. We have, in addition to having sprayed all but some concentrated areas of coca, which is why the attacks are getting so vicious, why we had some Americans shot down, why we have had our planes taking more hits than they ever have because we are not spraying the whole country anymore, we are spraying concentrated areas that are hard to get to and the drug dealers are digging in to fight to keep us from eradicating, but we have had the best spraying year. One hundred fifty municipalities now have a government presence in them instead of just having the right-wing terrorists come through who originally were trying to protect the towns but were not government units and the left-wing FARC which provides protection for the drug growers fighting with each other, terrorizing the individual people. There is now a government presence since President Uribe took over in 150 municipalities that did not have it. They have had more than 300 projects and 25 departments benefiting displaced persons, rehabilitating child soldiers, providing legitimate employment opportunities. It is part of our Andean initiative to make sure that we do not just spray, we do not just eradicate but what are we doing for the people who are being disrupted because of our habits, our habits and western Europe. Then the question is if we cannot get it there, we have got to get it in interdiction. Because of pulling a lot of our Coast Guard units in and some of the other things in around Homeland Security, we have had some gaps; but we have been doing reasonably well, particularly on the south border. For example, a couple of DEA busts along with the stigma on LSD, when we can tackle it, much like we are trying to do with meth and OxyContin hopefully too, this is the pattern of emergency room, when somebody comes in, do they mention that they were high on LSD? As we can see, it has dropped from 5,000 in 1999 to 891 in 2002. In my home area in northeast Indiana, we had a similar drop. We had a jump up in LSD. We battle it hard; we interdict it. The DEA did a major undercover bust with it. We had publicity on attacking LSD, and when we put on the stigma combined with enforcement, it will drop. Meth is a huge challenge, and it is a growing challenge. Even though all of us see the little labs, I want to make just a brief education point on meth because most Members here, if we ask them what is the fastest-growing category, everybody would say meth, but it is actually still only 8 percent of drug use, and 80 percent of the meth is coming from superlabs in California and Mexico even though we are seeing all these arrests in our district, because the labs we have in Indiana and rural Pennsylvania and others are dangerous and addictive and threatening the kids in those labs, but they are only cooking for themselves and maybe two other people, whereas the superlabs will ship it to thousands of people. California has been the leader in passing child abuse laws; and other States need to emulate that, that if they have a lab, because of the terrible deaths of kids getting exploded by their parents cooking and the dangers of the superlabs, but we need to focus on meth and crystal meth and ice and all the different variations like we had on LSD to get this kind of trend and keep the law enforcement pressure on with the stigma pressure and with an education and prevention pressure. One other thing. We are doing an OxyContin hearing in Orlando. They have had a series of deaths in that city because of overdoses on OxyContin. It is a difficult issue because they can have legitimate uses. Just like in meth, it is tough to regulate out of Brussels and out of Amsterdam and through Canada because ephedrine is not illegal. It has legal uses too. But the fact is we have to have the courage to stand up to some drug companies that do not want us to talk about the dangers of misuse of some legitimate drugs. The President last night boldly addressed steroids. We heard, particularly those of us who are baseball fans, some questions being asked about records that were falling; and out of that process we learned more and more that in multiple sports that the success stories were because people were artificially pumping themselves up. As that pressure spread and as we listen to the stories of athletes in junior high and high school, the sad stories of these kids who are afraid they cannot get college scholarships, who are afraid they cannot be pro athletes, who are afraid they cannot advance unless they cheat, unless they alter their body, who are even more vulnerable than the baseball, football, basketball, wrestling, boxing stars who pump themselves up who have millions of dollars to get physician advice, who still destroy their bodies, now imagine being a young person who is still growing, who is filling out, who does not get the medical advice, and is putting their life at risk, not just damaging their body but putting their life at risk. And the President had the courage last night, like the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) and others here in this body, to talk about the abuse in athletics and how we have to tackle that. Just like the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) and others have been leaders in trying to raise the issue of OxyContin here and the meth caucus in this Congress to try to address the meth questions, we have to work at the stigma. One other thing in this general category. If we continue to succeed in the eradication, if we continue to succeed in the interdiction at the borders, if we continue to succeed in arresting the dealers and those who are working with that, if we can up our prevention efforts and if we can put through drug testing and an accountability provision in, we still have to worry about those who are addicted. And the President last night had a couple of references. One is, in drug treatment, he has an expansion of drug treatment. We have been increasing that rapidly here; and we need to continue to do that because, quite frankly, if we do not stop the number of people coming in, we cannot, as Nancy Reagan so eloquently said, win a war just by treating the wounded. At the same time, we still have to treat the wounded. And if we can rehabilitate those who are addicted, we have a major impact on the drug problems in the United States. And the President proposed a faith-based initiative. But he did one other thing. I support mandatory sentences for certain crimes because I do not like how the legal system is letting certain people off based on how rich they are or what color they are and getting to make up what sentences they have based on their legal representation. There ought to be the same accountability. If one is a dealer, this is what they get. If one is a multiple user, if one is driving somebody to a drug bust, this ought to be their penalty. Our crime reductions in the United States, in the streets of the United States, and 75 to 85 percent of all crime is drug and alcohol related, are because we locked more people up; but our prisons are jammed. Many of those people are now coming out of their sentences, and the question is what are we going to do? They are starting to re-enter our economy. They are going to be back, and if all they learned was to how to be a better criminal, if their kids, who now lost their mom or dad because they were in prison and did not get any help, instead of being able to pull themselves up out of their situation, are now destroyed, we are in deep trouble in society. One of the other initiatives that the President announced last night was a major initiative to deal with housing kids of prisoners and initiatives in re-entry courts. There are a number of programs around the United States ranging from drug courts and looking for accountability of how to get drug courts that Director John Walters is trying to do and to get more patterns with it; but it is an innovative thing with an accountability, with the judge that people are working through. The drug testing is part of that, trying to include faith- based groups that put a religious and friend and volunteer accountability with it. But we also need to look at real problems of people not wanting to hire people when they are coming out of prison, people not yet wanting to let them in their apartment complex when they come out of prison. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis), who is on our subcommittee and is my colleague from Chicago from the other party, I am cosponsoring his legislation for trying to deal with the housing that often people who are coming out of prison face. The President understood that in addition to the Andean initiative, in addition to boosting the DEA, our critical anti-drug area, in addition to working with Homeland Security to make our borders secure from narco-terrorism and providing drug money to terrorists around the country that we have to do something to help rehabilitate those who have been in prison and we need to help them both from a personal standpoint, as they deserve it as a human soul, and from a practical standpoint for the rest of us as they are coming out of prison. They have been locked up. Our crime rate has been down. Are we really prepared for the changes we are going to see if we have not invested in those people? I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, first before I make the basic remarks I came down to the floor to make, I think it is important to make a couple of comments on the appropriations process that has been, I believe, somewhat misrepresented in some of the comments we have heard today. I want to thank the gentleman from California (Chairman Lewis) and his subcommittee, the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) of the full committee, our esteemed late colleague Mr. Skeen, who all understood that the appropriations process is extremely difficult. We all come in with all these requests. We believe that everybody else's requests are pork except for ours. We try to have a budget resolution that we try to hold everybody in. This year we were fairly successful, but when we have the war in Iraq and other pressures, we inevitably go over. I had been a staffer for many years and then a Member of Congress. I do not know when we have ever been within the budget guidelines, and we have done better than normal. But the impression has been given that somehow this was an unprecedented, terrible thing and it was just Republicans and we jammed it. The unfortunate sad truth is if it was just Republicans, this bill would have failed today because we had a bunch of Republicans who did not back the Republican conference report. What we had were 58 Democrats who voted for this bill. Nearly one-third of the Democratic Party backed a bill that was just described as an awful, bipartisan, unprecedented effort, backed, by the way, by one-third of the Democrats. So I think it is really important to make sure in the Record that the things that the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert) talked about today were, yes, very tough votes in many cases, took us a while to close the Medicare vote, but, in fact, it was an unprecedented year of accomplishment both in the Committee on Appropriations by the authorizers and in most cases, in almost every case, a bipartisan effort in spite of the fact that often the Democratic leadership pleaded with their Members not to make it bipartisan, but they saw the merits of the bill, and today 58 Democrats voted for this conference report. I have at times been a critic of some of the drug policies of Europe, and I wanted to rise today and recognize and applaud the European Union for agreeing to toughen antidrug laws and urging actions to end drug tourism on the continent. After more than 2 years of negotiations, EU ministers reached a landmark agreement on November 27 to toughen antidrug laws and to harmonize the continent's laws to make the bloc more efficient in the fight against illegal drugs. The laws cover all types of drug dealing, ranging from local networks to large-scale international operations. Under the agreed rules, offering, selling, or producing drugs would be sanctioned with maximum jail terms of at least 1 to 3 years. In cases involving large-scale international drug trafficking, sanctions should be at least 5 to 10 years. Member states also agreed on a declaration stressing the importance of fighting drug tourism. The EU's united stand against drug abuse strengthens global efforts to prevent drug abuse and to put away drug pushers and others including terrorists who financially benefit from destructive drug addiction. It is disappointing that the EU agreement will allow the so-called ``coffee shops'' in the Netherlands where marijuana can be legally abused to remain open. I am, however, encouraged that the Netherlands is investigating possible approaches that would end U.S. drug tourism to Amsterdam. Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner has stated that the Netherlands Government is considering rules under which ``coffee shops'' would only be allowed to sell drugs to Dutch residents as part of its obligation to dissuade tourists from going to Amsterdam for drugs. Under his proposal, only Dutch residents with identity cards would be allowed to use the cannabis cafes. This move would protect Americans visiting Amsterdam from the dangers of engaging in drug abuse. Currently, foreign tourists, including Americans, make up about 40 percent of ``coffee shop'' sales in Amsterdam, according to the London Times. I also hope that this agreement will further our international efforts to control the trafficking of ecstasy and other dangerous synthetic drugs. In recent years, traffickers have set up their illegal manufacturing operations in countries, predominantly the Netherlands, and also to some degree in Belgium, in the hopes of avoiding tough penalties if they are caught. This agreement should send a clear signal to the drug cartels that Europe and the U.S. will continue to work together to break up these international drug rings. Furthermore, I am encouraged that the Netherlands has also agreed to increase its sanctions for the possession of small quantities of marijuana to a year from 1 month. These are important steps in the Netherlands that I hope will eventually lead to stiffer penalties for all drug abuse. It is increasingly clear that every nation must play a role in educating the public as to why drug abuse is harmful and in preventing drug addiction. As long as one country tolerates the production, sale, or distribution of any illegal drugs, other nations, communities, and families are vulnerable to the threats caused by drug abuse that is easily transported across borders. The EU's commitment to not tolerate drug abuse and drug tourism protects not only the families and communities of Europe but also the families and communities here and elsewhere in the world. Again, I applaud this agreement and look forward to working with these and other countries to strengthen international drug laws and to protect children from the dangers of drug abuse and addiction.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise today to announce the passing of John ``Jack'' Kerrigan, long time narcotic officer and one of the founding members of the Northern California HIDTA. Jack died December 1, 2003 in San Francisco, following a brief battle with cancer. His leadership has inspired many law enforcement officers and lawmakers to continue the fight against illegal drugs. He will be deeply missed by the law enforcement community and it is an honor to remember him today. Jack joined the San Francisco Police Department in 1949. During his distinguished thirty-two year career, he served in many capacities but the majority of his career was spent in the narcotic bureau. in 1955, the San Francisco Police Department formed the first municipal police narcotics unit in the nation and Jack was selected as one of its investigators. Jack remained in that assignment as a Patrolman, Assistant Inspector, Sergeant, and Inspector until 1969, when he was promoted to Lieutenant of Police. Jack returned as the Unit Commander from 1970 to 1976 where he led the department's drug enforcement efforts including the investigation of many large drug trafficking organizations. Because of his long tenure in narcotic enforcement, Jack was recognized as one of the nation's leading experts on drug abuse and narcotic enforcement. He was a founding member of the California Narcotic Officer's Association (CNOA) and served as that organization's second President in 1966. With Jack's leadership, CNOA grew from two hundred members to more than seven thousand statewide. It is now recognized as the premier law enforcement training association in the country. Jack continued to serve on CNOA's Executive Board until the time of his death and rarely missed a board meeting. Jack was present at CNOA's recent conference in Sacramento, where he received a standing ovation from the conference's two thousand attendees when the President's award was renamed, ``The Jack Kerrigan Award'', in honor of Jack's commitment to CNOA and the law enforcement profession. Jack had been presented the President's Award in 1999 by then CNOA President Christy McCampbell. In 1994, Jack was a founding member of the National Narcotic Officers' Associations' Coalition (NNOAC), which represents forty state narcotic officers' associations and more than sixty thousand police officers from around the country. Because of his expertise in drug enforcement, Jack was frequently called upon to represent CNOA and the NNOAC in Washington, D.C. with members of Congress, the Administration, and Federal law enforcement agencies. During the September 11, 2001, emergency, Jack traveled to Washington where he met with senior administration officials and members of Congress to discuss the nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism. During that trip Jack was exposed to anthrax in the Hart Senate Office Building. During Jack's law enforcement career, he was selected for many special assignments and projects. In 1966, he was the first San Francisco Police Officer to attend the FBI's National Academy in Washington, D.C. He was also selected by the U.S. Department of Justice, in the fall of 1974, to travel to England to work with London's famed Scotland Yard for three months. Following his retirement in 1981, Jack went to work for the California Department of Justice as a Regional Coordinator for the Western States Information Network (WSIN), a multi-state information sharing and assistance unit serving law enforcement throughout the West. Jack worked for WSIN until his death, giving him the distinction of serving in law enforcement for more than 54 years. In that job, Jack worked with narcotic officers and senior law enforcement officials throughout his region, which stretched from San Luis Obispo to the Oregon border. Jack was also an educator with both California and Idaho teaching credentials. He served on the faculty of San Francisco City College in the Department of Criminology from 1966 to 1981. He was also a guest lecturer at the University of Idaho, University of California Medical School, Santa Clara University, and the University of San Francisco. Jack was the author of several articles published in the FBI's Law Enforcement Journal, the CNOA magazine, and other professional publications. Jack was married to his high school sweetheart, the former Elaine Taylor, for 49 years. Together they had five children, John F. Kerrigan III M.D. and his wife Jackie, Lawrence Kerrigan, Patricia Von Koss and her husband Eben, Paul Kerrigan, and James Kerrigan, a Special Agent Supervisor with the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement and his wife Catherine. Jack and Elaine also shared the love of their eleven grandchildren. Jack will be remembered as a loving husband, dedicated family man, courageous police and naval officer, proud San Franciscan, pioneer in narcotic enforcement, and a patriot who loved is country.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month and today I have introduced a resolution to recognize the survivors of cervical cancer and to raise awareness of cervical cancer, including the importance of prevention, early diagnosis and treatment. Each year in the United States, approximately 12,200 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 4,100 women die from the disease. Worldwide, cervical cancer affects approximately 288,000 women annually, and in some parts of the world, cervical cancer is the most common cancer in women. Clinical studies have confirmed that the human papillomavirus (HPV) is the cause of nearly all cervical cancer. In addition, HPV is associated with more than 1 million precancerous lesions of varying severity. With 20 million Americans believed to be infected, HPV is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the United States. An estimated 5.5 million people become infected with HPV every year. Not everyone infected with HPV will develop cancer but those with persistent, high risk strains of HPV are at increased risk as are their partners. However, the majority of women are unaware of these facts. In a recent survey, 70 percent of women were unable to name the cause of cervical cancer, and 76 percent had never heard of HPV. Many also confuse treatment with prevention. While treatment can prevent the progression of cervical disease or death from cervical cancer, treatment is not prevention of the presence of disease. Furthermore, treatment can often be invasive, unpleasant, and costly and not preclude the necessity for additional treatments. Cervical cancer is treated using surgery, radiation and chemotherapy; sometimes two or more methods are used. The most common types of surgery include cryosurgery, laser surgery, cone biopsy, simple hysterectomy, radical hysterectomy and pelvis lymph node dissection, and pelvic exenteration. Radiation therapy may involve external radiation or internal radiation (radioactive materials implanted in the tumor). Treatment for cervical dysplasia--a premalignant or precancerous change in the cells of the cervix that may progress to cancer--include surgery, cone biopsy, cryosurgery, laser surgery, and electrosurgery. The direct medical cost of treating a patient with cervical cancer is $9,200 to $13,360, while surgery to remove a precancerous lesion is $1,100 to $4,360. The financial burden of HPV in the United States has been estimated to range from $1.6 billion to $6 billion annually, making HPV one of the most costly sexually transmitted diseases after HIV/AIDS. To alleviate the burden of these costs to women who are faced with the threat of cervical cancer, Congress approved Public Law 106-354 in 2000 allowing states to provide medical assistance through Medicaid to eligible women who were screened for and found to have breast or cervical cancer, including precancerous conditions, through the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. The best protection against cervical cancer and cervical disease, however, remains prevention of HPV infection. Public Law 106-554, also approved by Congress in 2000, directs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration to take action to educate the public about HPV. The law specifically requires CDC to issue a report on HPV not later than December 21, 2003, ``including a detailed summary of the significant findings and problems and best strategies to prevent future infections, based on the available science.'' With Cervical Cancer Awareness Month just weeks away, the statutory release date mandated for the CDC HPV prevention report is well timed to allow all members of Congress, federal agencies, health care professionals and the public to educate themselves and others about HPV. During this month, we should also recognize the survivors of HPV and cervical cancer who have shown tremendous courage and determination in the face of adversity.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, over the last three days I have commented on Democratic Congressional staff memos that show how left-wing special interest groups are trying to hijack the appointment of federal judges. Today, I am introducing four more such memos. Besides confirming the fact that these groups are demanding, and apparently receiving, the power to delay or even block President Bush's nominees, they expose the double standard these groups apply to women and minority nominees who don't share their extreme political views. One memo shows that these groups identified Miguel Estrada, a nominee who received the American Bar Association's highest rating, as ``especially dangerous'' because, among other things, ``he is Latino.'' Another memo reports that liberal lobbyists and their supporters in Congress proposed ``a strategy for dealing with conservative Latino Circuit Court nominees.'' That memo also reveals that these lobbyists were using their contacts in the ``Latino media'' to undermine Mr. Estrada and others like him. Nominees Caroline Kuhl and Priscilla Owen were also singled out for opposition. It is both ironic and tragic that these groups, which so loudly proclaim their support for the ``civil rights'' of women and minorities, would deny a judicial appointment to any minority or woman candidate who exercises his or her civil right to hold different opinions. It is time for these groups to stop blocking nominees who don't conform to their ideological stereotypes. Memorandum To: [Member of Congress] Date: November 6, 2001 Re: Meeting with Civil Rights Leaders, Tuesday, November 6, at 5 p.m. [Congressional Office Building] Following up on a meeting in mid-October, you are scheduled to meet with leaders of several civil rights organizations to discuss their serious concerns with the judicial nomination process. The leaders will likely include: Ralph Ncas (People For the American Way), Kate Michelman (NARAL), Nan Aron (Alliance for Justice), Wade Henderson (Leadership Conference on Civil Rights), Leslie Proll (NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund), Nancy Zirkin (American Association of University Women), Marcia Greenberger (National Women's Law Center), and Judy Lichtman (National Partnership). The meeting will take place in [Congressional Office Building] with [2 Members of Congress] also present. Today's meeting is likely to touch on a number of related issues. The primary focus will be on identifying the most controversial and/or vulnerable judicial nominees. The groups would like to postpone action on these nominees until next year, when (presumably) the public will be more tolerant of partisan dissent. They would also like to develop a strategy for moving these nominees. Among their priorities: (1) they want to ensure that they receive adequate notice before controversial nominees are scheduled for hearings; (2) they think [Member of Congress] should use controversial nominees as bargaining chips, just as the Republicans did; and (3) they are opposed to holding hearings during recess. Although [Member of Congress] has resisted these moves so far, they are reasonable requests in our estimation. There will likely be a discussion about how to respond effectively to recent Republican charges that the pace of judicial nominations is too slow. The Republicans have continued to hold-up the appropriations bills. As of Friday, it was their intention to launch a new campaign this week, charging the Democrats with hindering the war effort by not confirming judges who are needed to approve wire taps and search warrants. This claim is deeply flawed, because the Committee has been especially quick to move along district court judges and the White House has not nominated people to fill more than half of the current vacancies. Under separate cover, I will provide a table that evaluates the current Court of Appeals nominees who are pending, as well as a few noteworthy district court nominees. N.B.: These are my designations, and they are preliminary. The groups may feel somewhat differently.